On Friday, the Minnesota Timberwolves lost by five points to the Houston Rockets. It was yet another game where second-year guard Rob Dillingham did not see any action, even with superstar guard Anthony Edwards out with a toe injury.
Mostly rotting away on the bench of late, other than appearing in garbage time, Dillingham is an obvious candidate to be traded. His shooting from inside the arc has been absolutely putrid, though this season, and that was highlighted by ESPN on Thursday.
Unfortunately at this juncture, it's time to move on from the 2024 lottery pick.
Rob Dillingham's struggles have lasted all season
ESPN’s Bobby Marks and Kevin Pelton recently posted an article on one player to watch on each team that potentially could be dealt by the February 5 trade deadline. It should surprise nobody that Dillingham is the player that they listed for Minnesota.
Pelton provided an ugly stat from the recently-turned 21-year-old to show how miserable his second season has been thus far.
"Dillingham is shooting just 33% on 2-point attempts, worst among players with at least 100 attempts this season," Pelton wrote.
That’s right. Dillingham has made exactly one-third of his 2-point tries this season (34-102). That’s a stark difference from his rookie year, when he was at least adequate (68-137, 49.6 percent). Dillingham hasn't been all that good at home, but on the road, he has made just 16 of his 53 2-point attempts (30.2 percent).
The eighth overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, Dillingham has mostly been out of the rotation for a month now, surpassed by Bones Hyland. It certainly isn’t what the Timberwolves expected when they traded for the eighth selection in 2024 in order to draft Rob.
Yesterday with .@DanBarreiroKFAN, Micah Nori went in-depth about where Rob Dillingham is right now.
— Charlie Walton (@CharlieWaltonMN) January 15, 2026
"I think by no means is he on the out, it's just a matter of we're trying to win games, Bones is playing very, very well, and you're going to have growing pains."
Full soundbite: pic.twitter.com/6sFNOPqAxR
Time to move on
With Mike Conley aging, Minnesota looked towards acquiring its point guard of the future in the 2024 NBA Draft. It was an understandable move with Conley being 37 years old (now 38) at the time. They gave up their 2031 first-round pick and the right to swap first-rounders in 2030 to the San Antonio Spurs for the aforementioned eighth overall pick in 2024.
After uneven playing time as a rookie, much more was expected of Dillingham in Year 2. Instead, it’s fairly evident that a change of scenery is needed for Dillingham, and it would benefit both the team and the player.
I suggested the Sacramento Kings as a potential landing spot, but the Washington Wizards and Dallas Mavericks could be two other teams where he could receive the playing time needed to develop.