Is the right PG answer on the Minnesota Timberwolves roster?

Replacements at point guard

One obvious way to improve the team’s three-point percentage is ball movement. Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch has preached about the benefits of flow. Moving the ball gets the defense scrambling (when it’s done with purpose). Extra passes, closeout attacks, and movement are all pivotal to keeping the necessary flow. Jordan Mclaughlin might have a picture next to flow in Webster’s. He doesn’t force anything, film and statistics show this.

He’s routinely making extra passes to shooters and the star scorers. He doesn’t mind shooting the ball less than 10 times a game. He’s looking to find the best shot each possession down. According to Cleaning The Glass, the Wolves are +18 in 165 possessions with Jmac on the floor. That’s a superstar number. Many casual fans would question how a role player is making a Nikola Jokic-like impact with +/- data. It’s the movement and freeness Jmac plays with.

Jmac is like a NASCAR driver in transition compared to D’lo. He doesn’t have that slow, crafty, methodical style that slows down the break. The Wolves are +12.2 on the break with Mclaughlin on the floor.

McLaughlin keeps his head up looking to move the ball with passes instead of dribbling. If he is so valuable to the flow of the offense, what’s stopping him from entering the starting lineup?

Timberwolves roster PG options have challenges

Like Russell and the rest of the Timberwolves, McLaughlin has struggled from deep. He’s shooting 11.6 percent(!) on low volume to kick off the season. He and Russell differ in the fact that this is typically who McLaughlin is — not eleven percent bad but McLaughlin has shot under league average from three every year since his rookie campaign.

Teams are tagging and stunting off of D’Angelo Russell but they aren’t completely ignoring him ruining the spacing that way. I’d like to imagine that Russell will eventually shoot the ball better this year. If nothing other than sheer shooting luck, the beginning of this year hasn’t been him throughout his roller-coaster 8-year career.

Teams will completely ignore McLaughlin if he’s bumped up to 30 minutes a night of playing time (teams already do it now). They help hard off Jmac and are willing to give him any perimeter shot, even the corner three which says a lot. McLaughlin can subtract from the Wolves’ spacing in this sense, but you have to give something to get something. Does the trade-off of McLaughlin’s ball movement outweigh the fact that teams will leave him and clog the lane even more?

McLaughlin has even more physical limitations than Russell defensively standing at 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds. The effort is there but teams will simply hunt him if he is routinely out there with starters for the long haul.