Personal thoughts on the steep human cost the Wolves are extracting for supporting them
Derrick Rose is the most athletic human being I’ve ever seen in person. And I mean that sincerely. Before the injuries, Rose had a combination of power, finesse, blinding speed, lateral quickness, change of direction, and sheer explosive verticality - both with a running start and from a dead standstill - that was unrivaled. A lot of guys had a few of those traits. A few had a lot of them. But all of them? You can count that number of athletes basically on one hand.
Which should have made Rose’s virtuoso performance against the Jazz and all-time feel good moment. A former MVP with his home team, who did a ton of good for that city, then had his career derailed by injury, put in a legendary performance. 50 points, leading a critically shorthanded Timberwolves squad to a narrow victory over a heated division rival. For a night - even if it ends up being only one night - Derrick Rose was an MVP again.
It was magnificent. It was enthralling. It was triumphant.
I was miserable for basically the entire time.
I don’t say that to be a buzzkill. I don’t say that to be a contrarian, or to prove how “woke” I am. I say it because it’s genuinely the truth. Last night - and as has been the case for me with the Timberwolves for the better part of two years now - I sincerely was unable to enjoy a game, a moment, in which the stars perfectly aligned for my favorite sports team.
Because here’s the thing: Rose has also been credibly accused of being a rapist. His deposition in the initial trial is chilling, and paints a pretty clear picture of a guy going way too far to solicit sex from a woman who had pretty strong reservations about consenting to that. And then Rose went on record saying he didn’t know what consent was at all.
“Question: “Do you have an understanding as to the word consent?”
Rose: “No but can you tell me?”
Question: “I just wanted to know if you had any understanding.”
Rose: “No.””
In two weeks, Rose will be back in court for an appeals trial, after the original “not liable” verdit was seriously called into question by shockingly inappropriate behavior by the jurors after the trial ended.
I’ve made my feeling about Rose clear - I’m not a fan. He has prodigious athletic gifts, he’s worked hard to overcome injuries that would have retired other players, and there are times - like last night - where he looks like the dazzling kid again that won MVP seven years ago. I’m still not a fan. I will never be a fan. I simply don’t support his presence or position on this team. But he’s here, and sometimes he plays well. Last night, he won the Wolves a game almost singlehandedly with a performance that will go down in the history books.
How do I reconcile that with his behavior? What is the cost of supporting a probable rapist because he’s on the basketball team I love? And should I - or any of us - be willing to pay that cost, and enable this situation to continue?
That’s the problem with this Timberwolves team - everything about them comes at a cost. Even the good things. Especially the great things.
Start with Tom Thibodeau. He has lived up to every reservation and criticism that was leveled at him before being hired. He’s stubborn. He’s impatient. He has serious issues tending to the health of his players, both physically and emotionally. He’s a bully. And he is, quite frankly, abusive.
One example: here he is calling Karl-Anthony Towns a “stupid motherfucker” on national television, at the end of a game against the Clippers, after Towns made a pass Thibs told him to make. This is not “tough love”. This is not good coaching. This is abuse. And it is behavior that has not been confined to just this incident, or just during games.
It has also not been confined to just KAT, or just the players, even.
LeGarza was primarily KAT’s development coach. He was fired because Thibs didn’t like that KAT would confide in him with his Thibs complaints. He was fired out of spite. This should have been obvious over the summer, when Thibs ignored Towns’ repeated requests for a sit down meeting to discuss the issues with Jimmy Butler, completely calling a lie on the reasoning that he should have the strongest relationship with KAT.
I’ve had people tell me the computer monitor through the window incident didn’t happen. I’ve had people who insist to me it did. Either way, that sort of behavior would not be out of line for the way Thibs acts when his tempter flares. It is a toxic work environment, which even Glen Taylor acknowledges he’s unhappy with (he just won’t spend the money to fix it. But that’s a discussion for another time)
This is compounded by Thibs’ decision to sabotage trade deals for Jimmy Butler, forcing him to report to the team and play. This is another case of the team creating a dichotomy between opposing interests that can’t be cleanly reconciled, and it’s happening on two levels.
First, Jimmy being here means the team wins more. Normally, you want your favorite team to win. That’s ultimately the point of playing the game in the first place. But winning is also validation for Thibs’ insubordination, and the extensive damage it has caused - lost credibility, locker room dissension, the public humiliation of key franchise players and the broken trust between players and the organization that has caused. Supporting winning is supporting all of that. Another heavy cost to be paid.
And second, Jimmy himself is a hell of a player. We saw it against Cleveland and saw it even more clearly against the Lakers, when he got the better of one LeBron James. On the court, he’s glorious. An absolute treat to watch. But he comes with a cost too. He still wants out, and in his quest to make sure that’s happened, he’s acted like a lunatic and left a trail of figuratively dead bodies in his wake. The “Jimmy Practice” and his ESPN interview turned KAT and Wiggins into jokes on social media, which will take years to live down at a minimum, and caused damage to their trust and respect for the Timberwolves organization that we still likely don’t know the full extent of yet. Supporting Jimmy is also supporting his antics.
Last week, I saw a poignant response about Donald Trump that applies perfectly here as well: people are not a la carte. When deciding who to put into power or on a pedestal, we don’t actually get to pick and choose the parts of them we like and discard the rest, even when we think we do. Voting a racist into office because we like his tax policies is still voting for a racist. Naming a bully the head coach and president because we like his track record is still empowering a bully. Cheering for a rapist because he’s winning us basketball games is still cheering for a rapist.
When Rose walked off the court last night, mobbed by his teammates and fighting back tears, he was the picture perfect image of a heroic comeback story. His basketball career was effectively over at age 23. His hometown turned on him. It should have been the end. Then he wrote a new 50 point chapter. And everyone was giddy for him. Except.
Except….
On his latest podcast, Bill Simmons laid into the Jimmy Butler situation and the way it’s been covered, as basically praise for Butler creating a toxic environment for his own teammates:
“I don’t understand how this is leadership. You don’t lead by dividing people. I’ve just never seen that work as a formula.
I don’t agree with how [Jimmy] behaved. I don’t agree with how it was covered. I don’t agree with how we enable bad behavior now from athletes.”
And that really encapsulates both Butler and Rose. Fawning over Rose’s majesty on the court is validating and enabling his sexual behavior off it, in the same way that fawning over Jimmy laying the smack-eth-down in practice is enabling that abuse of his teammates. It’s not healthy. It’s not right.
I don’t know what the right answer in this situation is. All I can do is suggest right things to do. Know the truth as best you can before acting. Don’t encourage or enable behavior that hurts people. Listen to the women in your life. And weigh the cost of supporting wrong actions very, very carefully.
The last year-plus has been, quite frankly, exhausting for me as a Timberwolves writer. Even when things were seemingly going awesome back in January, these problems were building. Now it’s boiled over in a way everyone can see and no one can ignore. The team is in chaos. They ignored a very serious problem all summer and are now handling the consequences of that in the worst way possible.
But more than anything, they’ve created a steep cost for being a fan. Supporting the Timberwolves - even the unexpectedly great things they still manage to do - is also supporting some reprehensible human behavior. Everyone has a price they’re willing to pay. For me, it’s too much. I simply cannot support this team in clear conscience.
