NBA Draft Day is usually a pretty active day when it comes to players finding new homes. After the San Antonio Spurs drafted Kentucky guard Rob Dillingham, the Minnesota Timberwolves immediately traded to get him. The Timberwolves traded a 2031 First-round pick and a 2030 pick swap to acquire Dillingham. Let’s evaluate the Rob Dillingham trade.
Rob Dillingham Trade Provides Minnesota Timberwolves With Depth
It appears that the Timberwolves were pretty impressed with Dillingham and made that known with this trade. Dillingham will provide immediate improvement for a Minnesota team that ran out of steam in the NBA Playoffs. The thing that stands out about Dillingham is his ability to score. He can light it up from anywhere on the court with his incredible isolation play and shot-making ability. He averaged 15.2 points off of the bench for John Calipari last season on 47.5% shooting from the field and 44.4% shooting from deep. While those numbers aren’t the greatest thing anyone has ever seen, Dillingham is a volume scorer, as we saw out of Lou Williams. He was asked to come off the bench and light it up from the field. It is hard to say that he didn’t succeed in that realm.
The Minnesota Timberwolves flat-out ran out of steam against the Dallas Mavericks in the playoffs. Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns played great in the playoffs, but when it came to having to take either off of the court, scoring subsided. The Rob Dillingham trade should instantly fix this problem, as he will not need to be relied on to distribute or defend, just score. The defense will be there for Minnesota, like we saw last year, so inserting the Kentucky alum could provide the Timberwolves with exactly what they need to make the NBA Finals.
San Antonio Continues to Build for the Future
This Rob Dillingham trade seemed a little puzzling from the standpoint of the San Antonio Spurs. In place of Dillingham, the Spurs elected to move forward with a 2031 first-round pick. Whether that means that they are planning to package picks together to go after another player, or if they plan to move around this NBA Draft, it might be hard to find a scorer who seems like they will fit well together with Victor Wembanyama.
Unless the Spurs know something that I don’t know, this looks like it could come back to bite them in the butt. San Antonio Spurs now hold 15 first-round picks through 2031. That gives them a lot of flexibility to make a trade for a solid starting guard like Trae Young or Dejounte Murray.
