Jaylen Clark’s path to regular minutes with the Minnesota Timberwolves will require offensive growth. The defense is definitely there. The offense? Not so much.
The Timberwolves ended their preseason schedule on Friday with a loss to the Chicago Bulls. Clark got more opportunity because the entire starting lineup didn't play, along with Ayo Dosunmu, Trey Lyles, and Bones Hyland. It was Clark’s best offensive performance of the preseason, but it's likely still not enough to earn him a spot in the rotation to begin the year.
Clark needs to show way more offensive consistency
In 29 minutes on Friday, Clark finished with 18 points on 6-for-12 shooting, including 3-for-8 from 3-point range and 3-for-6 from the foul line. He did most of his damage in the second quarter, making four of five shots and scoring 10 points.
Still, one good offensive game—and perhaps even just one good quarter—doesn’t fully offset the five mostly nondescript preseason outings that came before it. The 25-year-old did have a five-assist game against the Miami Heat in just 18 minutes.
It was important to see Clark look confident shooting the 3-point ball during the preseason. Getting up eight attempts in the final game was a good sign. Clark made 35.7 percent of his attempts, better than the 32.7 percent he made last season, but still well short of his 2024–25 accuracy.
Still, opposing defenses have two years of data showing Clark hasn’t been much of a scoring threat. If the defense isn’t paying much attention to a player on the court, it makes things much more difficult for the other players.
Right now, it seems evident that Ayo Dosunmu and Joan Beringer will play large roles off the bench. After that, things are less clear, but I believe Terrence Shannon Jr. and Bones Hyland are both ahead of Clark in the pecking order. Chris Finch also showed confidence in Trey Lyles throughout the preseason. Cody Williams had his moments in the preseason too.
Counting the starters, that’s at least nine players ahead of Clark. In a close win over the Portland Trail Blazers in last season’s regular season opener, Chris Finch used 10 players.
Finch may choose between Lyles, Williams, and Clark as the 10th player on Wednesday (my guess is Lyles, being the 10th man). I wouldn’t expect any of them to play more than 10 minutes against the Heat (Hyland played just 7:43 in last year's season opener). The idea of Clark becoming a valuable rotation player is there.
For that idea to come to fruition, he needs to become a more reliable offensive player.
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