Jaylen Clark arrives at the point of attack with the force of a miniature Mack truck, yet steadily inexhaustible, as if fueled by nuclear power activated into his bloodstream on a slow drip. His hunger to defend is a homing device trained on the basketball and the unsuspecting opponent handling it. When it comes to denying points, he is never less than a pest — and, at his best, a pestilence.
It has taken Clark a tiny sample size to inspire these hyperbolic accolades. For the vast majority of his NBA “career,” he has been less than forgettable and more likely to invoke a phrase currently in vogue, a “complete unknown.”
Sure, the six-foot, five-inch guard was a notorious hound for three years at UCLA, culminating in him being named the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year for the 2022-23 collegiate season. But he received the award a month after rupturing his Achilles, an injury destined to sideline him for his entire rookie year, dampening his prospects of being taken in the NBA draft at the relatively advanced age of 21.
The Minnesota Timberwolves took the penny-ante gamble, selecting Clark as one of the final six players in the 2023 draft, the 53rd pick overall, then signing him to a “two-way” contract that is below the league’s rookie minimum and designed for players stashed away in the minor leagues for future development. Of course in Clark’s case, that development process was itself on hold for essentially the first season.
No matter. When the Wolves three picks were introduced that summer, Clark made it clear that while the Achilles was ruptured, the desire was indomitable, announcing that he was ready to “run through a wall” if instructed by the coaches.
When fans got their first look at Clark in a Wolves uniform, he was performing for the Summer League team, one of an undistinguished supporting cast around hotshot rookies Rob Dillingham and TJ Shannon and developing forwards Josh Minott and Leonard Miller. As expected, the defense was game and tenacious, but the rest of his skill set, especially on the offensive end, marked him for at-least temporary obscurity.
For the first few months of the 2024-25 season, he split his time between the parent club and team’s G-league affiliate in Iowa. His entire NBA experience consisted of four games in garbage time, amounting to a total of 10 minutes and one second of action. The collective box score from these games amounted to three missed shots, two made free-throws, an offensive rebound and a personal foul.
Then Josh Minott made a fateful mistake.
It was the start of the second quarter of a Jan. 29 game against the Suns in Phoenix. Minott committed to double-teaming Devin Booker, leaving his man, Bradley Beal wide open on a baseline cut to the basket. Minott’s athleticism enabled him to scramble back just enough to foul Beal on the ensuing layup.
Wolves Coach Chris Finch immediately benched Minott, who finished with 12 seconds of playing time. The blatant hook was uncharacteristic for Finch, but he’d been preaching adherence to the gameplan as a key to bench personnel getting on the court and Minott, a habitual scofflaw in that regard, had erred once too often.
The punishment disrupted the Wolves regular rotation, compelling Finch to turn to Clark for the final five minutes of the quarter after Mike Conley had been rushed back in to supplant Minott. And Clark did in rudimentary form what he has done in technicolor since then – hustle his butt off and make quick, correct basketball decisions that conform with the game plan and enable his teammates.
The Timberwolves outscored the Suns by three points in Clark’s first five-minute stint, and by six points when he repeated the rotation in the final five minutes of the third quarter. The very next night in Utah, the Wolves outscored the Jazz by 34 points in the 17:04 Clark was on the court. He’s been an invaluable part of the regular rotation in the half-dozen games since then.
Not even Clark’s biggest boosters could have anticipated this meteoric prominence, which stems from a parade of happenstances: The the final straw of Minott’s inattention to strategic detail; an injury to power forward Julius Randle, along with lesser ailments affecting the playing time of Mike Conley and Anthony Edwards and an offensive slump by backup center Luka Garza coupled with opponents’ exposing Garza’s inability to guard in space on defense.
Each of these things contributed to a jumble and a thinning in the Wolves rotation, prompting experiments to caulk the cracks, which in turn allowed new synergistic tandems and trios of player-teamwork to emerge. Collectively, they provided Clark with an opportunity.
But it is still stunning how comprehensively he seized it.
The prevailing assumption was that Clark could display notable moments of lockdown, on-ball defense, but that his shortcomings on offense and overall lack of refinement due to inexperience required limited circumstances and compensatory personnel to maximize, and not overtax, his contributions.
In reality, Clark’s maniacal effort level and attitude made it easy to discount his brains and his versatile development. His vow to play with reckless abandon on defense naturally sounded single-minded and prone to attention deficits, but in fact the Mack truck has a sober driver who knows how to work the clutch, and the nuclear drip is well-monitored.
So yeah, Clark tears around like an Energizer Bunny, maybe even one flecked with rabid foam, but the near-frenzied motion is choreographed by the coordinates of the game plan and good, instinctual teamwork.
For example, it is not uncommon to see Clark run up behind an opponent who has just secured a rebound in an effort to poke it free, or hop around lurking in the half-court in hopes of poaching a casual pass. (Former Timberwolf Jarred Vanderbilt shares this rare trait, borne of an extra dollop of habitual hustle.)
Here’s the way Clark describes it. “I always kind of know where my guy is and that I’ve gotta run (to guard him), so I’ll take a little longer route and just try to swing at it and know that I’m bee-lining back. But a lot of people relax when they get these rebounds; they’re loose. I ended up getting one (during that night’s game against Houston), and I feel like if you can get two, three, possessions back that way it may decide the game – or swing a game. Like the last one that I got was at a good time. It got a little run started.”
Put simply, there’s method saturated in the madness. With Minott and Garza falling off and Randle hurt, Finch is able to get away with frequently deploying Clark as a de facto power forward, or switchable large wing, for two reasons. One is that he is simply a rugged competitor who will ably joust with larger foes. The other is because his constant motion and whirring brain enables him to anticipate positioning on pick-and-roll defense, or boxing out, or gap coverage and recovery in the low block and painted area, which dissolves some of his size disadvantage.
A high court-IQ coupled with a strong work ethic and readiness to absorb criticism also explains Clark’s surprisingly robust contribution to the Wolves offense. His adherence to the three principles of Finch’s flow offense – move the ball, move yourself when you don’t have the ball, and make quick decisions – are aligned with his selfless character. But he is at-best a mediocre dribbler and came into the league as an unreliable shooter, flaws that can sabotage the best of intentions.
And yet in an admittedly limited sample size of 163 minutes over 12 games (counting garbage time) Clark has made 50% of his 44 field-goals attempts and 50% of his 18 shots from three-point territory. He has gotten to the free throw line 14 times (a greater per-minute frequency than any guard on the roster but Ant) and has made 10. Most significantly, he has turned the ball over just twice, while doling out five assists.
With respect to his shooting improvement, Clark credits his time in the G-league. After earning his bones as a lockdown defender in college, he says his time in Iowa “allowed me to play a role that I’d never played before; I’d never been able to just go out there and chuck shots to that extent.
“One of the coaches down there is my cousin. Kelly McCarty,” Clark continued. “So I had someone who could push me on a different level, because he’s not worried about my feelings. He’s a scorer who played at a really high level himself so he’s telling me what he sees.”
What Finch sees is a crucial cog in the Wolves injury-shortened rotation.
“I’ve really been impressed with Jaylen. He just kind of plays super solid. He knows who he is, plays to that. Competes; kind of a ball-hawk – we need that. Offensively he stays ready to knock down threes and play off the catch, (and) knows how to draw a foul. A lot of little things. And he doesn’t require the ball in his hands, which is important for us in certain lineups out there.”
Put it all together and what we have here is a legitimate feel-good story. Clark’s first impression is unassuming. He walks in a manner that makes it look like he is stubbing his toes with every step, the kind of gait that expertly camouflages the cat-like agility and mobility he flashes on the court.
His ego is likewise under wraps. Just as he credited the G-league for his improved shooting, he invariably shouts out his time at UCLA and the “non-mistake” methods of his college coach Mick Cronin, for fostering his ability to make simple but smart and efficient decisions on the court.
It is fitting, and another cool part of the story, that Clark’s locker is set between those of Naz Reid (immediately to his left) and Jaden McDaniels (two over to his right). Naz and McDaniels are best friends, their bond enhanced by staying in Minneapolis during a chunk of the past few summers, honing their games together.
McDaniels was taken near the end of the first round in the 2021 NBA draft and bulled his way into playing time by being a relentless defender. He earned just a little more than $11 million total his first four years in the NBA before signing a five-year, $134 million deal that kicked in this season. Naz was an undrafted free agent who signed a bargain basement deal that paid him less than $7 million his first four years in the league, before receiving his first big raise, which figures to get significantly larger with his player option looming this summer.
You can see the connection among all three of them, which slides back and forth between mentorship and peer clowning. (Clark is a year younger than McDaniels and two years behind Naz.)
Players with two-way contracts are limited to 50 games with the NBA club, which means Clark can be available for the rest of the Wolves’ 28 regular season games. But two-way players are not eligible for the playoffs, which makes it highly likely that Clark will receive a bump on his current deal (paying him less than $600,000) for a longer-term contract that will officially put him on the 15-player roster.
Aside from that, who knows how big or small his role as the season unwinds its final two months. Renewed health for Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and the rest of the “eight starters” that crowded out everyone else in the Wolves rotation for most of the season, puts a premium on playing time for any of the “kids” going forward. That said, it is no small thing that Clark has earned Finch’s trust, in a way that can’t be said for any of the other youngsters, including Dillingham.
Not surprisingly, Clark himself is appropriately circumspect about the situation.
“It’s surreal, like, how fast everything can go; how opportunities come and you’ve got to take full advantage of it. Because if I wasn’t ready in the Phoenix game, I’m probably back in Iowa right now. It’s like people say, “Stay ready for when your time has come.’ It’s kind of cliché but it is really true.”
Britt Robson
Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.
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