Perusing The Positives: Jaden McDaniels' Catch-And-Go Prowess

An offseason series intended to refill the positivity meter by examining the most specific and wonderful parts of Minnesota's roster, starting with Jaden McDaniels' most fun growth area.

Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports

the Minnesota Timberwolves’ season was a paradoxical hall of mirrors.

For a franchise that has been starved of even the most meager morsels of success, a second consecutive playoff berth, a mountain of (relatively) important games and a 21-year-old budding megastar at the nexus of it all seems like enough checked boxes to constitute a successful campaign.

However, thanks to a mega-trade that launched their chips into the middle of the table, a flurry of untimely injuries, and the ever-looming question marks around coaching and front office malpractices, it didn’t feel so successful. In fact, more often than not, it felt more like fans were strolling blindfolded through an abandoned mansion that housed every manner of multi-legged incubus.

Now, with just one lone draft pick deep in the second round, a cap sheet that is nearing the point of bursting, and many of those same uncertainties around their roster building, the offseason is taking on a similarly ghastly feel to so many before it. The big picture has an eerily familiar air of muddled misfortune. So much so that, at times, it doesn’t feel like a picture at all. It feels like the same hodgepodge and undistinguishable tapestry that this franchise has languished within so many times before.

And still, within every ghoulish picture there are tiny masterpieces to be found within. That’s the beauty of sports and the refreshing nature of the off-season. There are always positives to be sought and even in a disappointing season there were plenty of them to be found for the Wolves. And those are the things that are worth clinging onto. Those small signs of life have a tendency to mutate and multiply and, eventually, add new life and more vibrant hues into the big picture.

So, while the playoffs rage on and, simultaneously, the rest of the basketball landscape dies down, Howls and Growls feel like celebrating those glimmers. And none of them exuded more hope for the future than Jaden McDaniels’ newfangled ability to make plays off-the-catch and, in turn, become a serious part of a successful offensive future.

When you think of McDaniels and his third season as a pro, the overarching positives are like glowing beacons of radiant light. Among all the gloom of the aforementioned negatives — including his infamous wall punch — his on-court play stands proud.

He’s inarguably one of the league’s best defenders. A spidery shadow demon on the ball and a pogo stick menace when protecting the rim. On top of that, he became a reliable shooter from deep. He’s always been able to supplement whatever points he garners from beyond the arc with an exceptional cutting nous and we’ve seen his pick-and-roll ball-handling frequency creep up and up over his first three seasons.

Those things will all make up the nucleotides of his game forever more. They’re ingrained in his offensive DNA now. This season, though, he added another bow to his quiver. Not only was he knocking down spot-up treys, he was routinely punishing defenders for marking him too close or closing out with too much verve.

We had seen the stems of his catch-and-go game start to sprout in his first two seasons, but they bloomed into lovely sunflowers this season. Because of them, they’re the reason he can be definitively labeled as a growing offensive force and not just a stock-standard 3-and-D player.

McDaniels isn’t reinventing the wheel. He isn’t making some sort of unforeseen adjustment or plonking himself on the path to instant stardom — he saves most of his truly unfathomable traits for defensive exploits — but this was a major step forward on the flashier side of the hardwood.

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It All Starts With A Jumper

The roots of McDaniels’ catch-and-go game could only grow because of his shooting improvements from deep. After struggling to throw a pebble in the Pacific during the first month of the season, McDaniels shot 40.6 percent (3.5 attempts per game) from November onward and then bumped that up to 42.7 percent (3.9 attempts) in the 21 games post-All-Star break.

Whether he had the ability to make plays for himself and others off the dribble before this season was irrelevant. Teams didn’t pay him enough respect as a shooter to force those closeouts and pry open those lanes for him to shimmy into. This season, though, he became more than just an occasional threat; he became a legitimate weapon from deep — especially in the corner. Perhaps surprisingly, a higher frequency (50.6%) of his 3-pointers came from the corner than ever before and he knocked down a career-best 41.9 percent of those corner looks.

Instead of being a corner-dweller who can be ignored in order to send defensive help at Anthony Edwards drives, Karl-Anthony Towns post-ups, or Rudy Gobert rim-runs, McDaniels became a must-guard outlet. Of course, defensive shells still get crumpled by Minnesota’s main scoring options, which means they have to sprint back to McDaniels. So now he can scoot past the closing defender and let his all-around game shine a little more.

It all starts from the shooting, but the branches that spring from that solid trunk are what made McDaniels such a fun growth project to track this past season.

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