MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnestota Timberwolves were already putting their roster through mid-season chaos, in hopes of moving in the right direction, when world circumstances put the rest of the league in rocky waters, too.
""What we have gone though in the last three, four months is historic. There are certain things you can't control. We want to be good teammates to our league," GM Gersson Rosas said Wednesday morning in the team's last media Zoom call of the season.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's decision to let the league's contenders continue the season in Orlando mean the Timberwolves are on the outside, looking in.
"Obviously you want to be a part of any competition you can be a part of. That's how we feel. But you also understand that this is bigger than one team. We support the decision from Commissioner Silver, we're also very confident we'll have opportunities to get our group together," head coach Ryan Saunders said.
Rosas called the team "disappointed," but also said these are hardly "normal" circumstances, and in the last few months he's watched the young players on the team mature in ways they never imagined.
"It's been incredible to see how our young players have grown. To see Karl-Anthony Towns, in the darkest time of his life, to be a role model. And to see Josh Okogie, the way he's taken this personally. De'Angelo [Russell], driving it home in his hometown of Louisville. We're in the epicenter of it here in Minneapolis," Rosas said.
Saunders and Rosas both said Okogie's desire to take personal responsibility for creating change in Minneapolis has inspired the team and community.
Rosas said the organization is standing with Okogie and the rest of its players, providing them a platform and opportunity to be heard.
"It has been a trying year, starting with COVID, and now going through what we're going through with this tragedy. But we feel like as an organization, we've come together and dealt with this in a way that will make us who we are. We want to be a spark, and organization that pushes positive change."
