Jaden McDaniels and the Minnesota Timberwolves are on the Verge of Unlocking His Offense
Through individual improvement and a few team adjustments, the Minnesota Timberwolves are on the verge of unlocking Jaden McDaniels's offensive upside.
The Jaden McDaniels offensive experience with the Minnesota Timberwolves has been a rocky one. Throughout his career, he’s taken a back seat on that end of the floor to players like Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns, Julius Randle, and others. Now, all of those players are better offensive options, but it’s resulted in McDaniels being utilized as exclusively a corner shooter with not much to do. Recently, though, things seem to be taking a turn. With a few subtle floor spacing alterations and some natural player development, McDaniels could be a crucial piece to unlocking this Timberwolves’ offense going forward.
At first glance, I know this premise may seem far-fetched as McDaniels, per Cleaning the Glass, has a usage of just 14%, is averaging 1.105 points per shot attempt (PSA), has shooting splits of 46/33/76, and possesses sub-par playmaking numbers. Those numbers don’t exactly scream “offensive weapon.” However, they don’t tell the whole story.
For most of his career, McDaniels has been used primarily as a spot-up corner shooter. The frequency of his shots coming from the corner has never dipped below 20% or the 70th percentile in the league. This year, he’s at 22% (80th percentile). Despite the high frequency, McDaniels only has two seasons where he’s shot above average from the corners and is at just 30% this season (18th percentile). So, even though McDaniels has consistently proven that that’s not where he’s best utilized, he’s still been consistently put in the corner.
Game after game, teams treat a McDaniels corner three-point attempt as a defensive win. They aggressively help off of him, close out short, and hide their worst defender on him. If the Timberwolves want to fully unlock their offense, they need to get McDaniels out of the corner and be more involved directly in the play.
To be clear, I am not advocating for letting McDaniels operate as a primary initiator or to feed him isolation possessions. Both of those would be poor ideas. However, there is constantly growing evidence that using McDaniels as just a corner shooter is a detriment to the offense.
For starters, McDaniels is a substantially better above-the-break three-point shooter this year than he is in the corners, as he’s shooting 38% (79th percentile) compared to 30% (18th percentile). Historically, this hasn’t been the case, as McDaniels has tended to be more effective from the corners than from above the break. However, the shot volume has also tended to skew heavily towards the corners. McDaniels is taking his highest volume of above-the-break threes since his second season, and the results have been good.
Taking McDaniels out of the corner improves his shot quality based on this season’s results, but it also helps rearrange the floor to maximize Minnesota’s corner three-point attempts in general. If McDaniels isn’t going to be knocking down corner threes, then it’s a waste of a possession to keep spamming it. Instead, moving McDaniels out of the corner inevitably shifts better shooters to the corners. This year, Nickeil Alexander-Walker (46%), Mike Conley (42%), Anthony Edwards (40%), Donte DiVincenzo (35%), Naz Reid (34%), and Rob Dillingham (57%) are all far more effective from the corners. However, all of them have a lower corner three-point frequency than McDaniels (Alexander-Walker has the same at 22%). Currently, the corners are a wasted area of the floor for the Timberwolves offense as they are shooting just 35.8% as a team, which is fifth-worst in the league. Shifting McDaniels out of the corner in lieu of better shooters while also putting him in a position where he’s been more efficient should pay dividends.
As riveting as spot-up shooting is, there are plenty of more exciting areas where McDaniels has started to show major growth and effectiveness that the Timberwolves could harness. It’s always easy to say: “oh, the team should just make this change, and everything is fixed.” What that ignores is the other pieces in the puzzle and their tendencies and habits. While I do think that a subtle positioning alteration would be beneficial, the fact is that the player himself simply needs to improve his processing and execution as well. Recently, we’re seeing McDaniels do just that.
Over his last ten games, McDaniels has been a crucial piece to the Timberwolves’s offense, as their offensive rating has jumped to 121.8 when he’s on the court compared to 104.3 when he’s off the court, per NBA Stats. This ranks second on the team, just behind Anthony Edwards at 122.2. Over that stretch, McDaniels is shooting better from three (36.1% compared to 33.3% on the season), but it’s not so egregious of a leap to explain everything. Also, offensive rating is a team stat; McDaniels isn’t the only factor, but he is a key one.
The biggest change has been that McDaniels is playing much more quickly out of the corners than he has in the past. Instead of settling for a corner jumper every time, he’s instead figuring out different ways to attack closeouts and get to more efficient areas of the floor. Per Synergy, McDaniels ranks in the 48th percentile on runners, 54th percentile at the rim, and 72nd percentile on jumpers inside of 17 feet. All of these are currently better options.
It’s not like McDaniels is creating a ton of space or wide-open looks in these situations, either. However, it’s clearly an area of the floor that he’s always been more comfortable in as he’s never ranked lower than the 61st percentile in midrange shooting or the 66th percentile in at-rim scoring. Despite not creating acres of space, McDaniels’s improvement at attacking closeouts by being more decisive and direct allows him to maximize his tools: his long strides, wingspan, adequate handle, and 6’10” frame. It may look unorthodox and like a baby giraffe learning how to run at times, but it is undoubtedly effective.
McDaniels’ improvement in attacking closeouts also has helped unlock more of his passing capabilities. McDaniels has never had great playmaking numbers, but there have always been flashes of quality connective passing. Typically, we see it with him making an extra pass on the perimeter, but now we’re seeing it in more of a secondary creator role. When McDaniels is attacking these closeouts and rotating defenses, he isn’t exclusively looking to score. He is a very good interior passer with his ability to execute lobs or dump-offs, and he’s improving his vision in terms of finding shooters on kick-outs. Whether he’s attacking from the corners or above the break, McDaniels’s growth in this area is making a huge impact on the Timberwolves’s offense.
The other area where McDaniels has shown improvement and the Timberwolves’ should continue to explore more is with his off-ball movement. Since he tends to be viewed as an afterthought on offense, it’s been easy to forget that McDaniels is, in fact, 6’10” and a very good athlete. Given his erratic shooting history, opposing teams also tend to hide their worst perimeter defender on McDaniels. This is the first year where it feels like they are finally exploiting that.
McDaniels has done a terrific job this season of moving without the ball and finding open pockets to settle in. Since the defense’s attention tends to settle on almost anyone else, McDaniels is able to consistently get easy looks. What this, along with other teams trying to hide defenders on him, also generates is a plethora of offensive rebounding opportunities. Currently, McDaniels has a career-high offensive rebounding rate of 4.8%, which ranks in the 82nd percentile. When he’s on the court, the Timberwolves have an offensive rebounding rate of 29.4% (66th percentile) which is 4.2% higher than when he’s off the court (88th percentile in differential). McDaniels’s heightened activity level has allowed him to feast on easy looks, generate extra possessions, and draw attention for teammates to do the same.
The final area where McDaniels has shown impressive flashes, and the area where the Timberwolves could continue to utilize him more is in the pick-and-roll. This season, only 5.5% of McDaniels’s possessions have been with him running the pick-and-roll, which ranks in the 12th percentile in frequency. However, he’s scoring 1.000 points per possession (PPP), which ranks in the 82nd percentile. This isn’t to say that McDaniels should be running pick-and-roll possessions that look like the ones that Edwards does. Instead, using him more as a true second-side creator or running him off handoffs could create advantageous situations while also taking some of the creation load off of Edwards and Randle.
McDaniels is at his best, either scoring or playmaking, when he’s getting downhill. We see this when he attacks closeouts, runs in transition, and moves without the ball. By giving McDaniels just a few of these creation opportunities per game, they can provide him with another context to attack the paint out of, lessen the creation responsibilities of others, and maximize the off-ball scoring threats of the lineup at large.
Over the last 10 games, the Timberwolves have the eighth-best offensive rating, and the improvements that McDaniels has shown have been an important reason for this development. McDaniels has shown crucial growth with his decisiveness, effectiveness, and versatility in attacking closeouts and scoring off-ball. However, there is a lot more that the Timberwolves can continue to unlock by moving him out of the corners more consistently, directly involving him in the action, and putting him in situations to attack downhill to create for himself and others. McDaniels has made his bones in the league on the defensive end, but it feels like we’re on the verge of his offensive breakthrough.