I moved recently, and in the process of culling some of my belongings, I came across some old notebooks from college. I found myself lost in the pages, scribbled with lecture notes, mathematical equations, and poetry. The disordered arrangement on the page was a reflection of my chaotic self. As I flipped through the pages, I felt a profound longing to be back there, writing those poems, half paying attention to lectures, and thinking I was good at math. I was not good at math.
This longing was quite odd because, to be honest, I had a miserable college experience. By the end of my junior year, I was in a deep, dark depression that took me years to dig myself out of. But when I think back on those times or read my adolescent poems, I still feel an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that makes me want to go back. Nostalgia has a funny way of changing the way we remember things.
Last weekend, Karl-Anthony Towns found himself chest-deep in the waters of nostalgia as he reunited with his “Bounce Brothers” Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine. The three of them — Wiggins and LaVine drafted in 2014, Towns in 2015 — dreamed of growing together to pull Minnesota Timberwolves basketball out of the pit of mediocrity. As we all know, that dream was cut short. LaVine was traded in 2017 and Wiggins three years later. By 2020, only Towns remained with a team that had been gutted and restored multiple times. He got one-and-a-half seasons with Wiggins and LaVine, yet it seems like that time meant the world to him.
It appears that Towns and the Timberwolves organization have operated with great care in the emotional aspects of the NBA business. I’ve written about how Glen Taylor has leaned toward the sentimental and nostalgic rather than the logical in his decision-making. But it seems there has also been a dangerous back-current: For every move rooted in sentiment, there was a recoil that knocked the team off-kilter, leaving the Wolves searching for balance.
Taylor hired Tom Thibodeau as head coach and president of basketball operations in 2016. The way Thibs managed the team reflected the dissonance between the sentiment and the sediment that has been Timberwolves basketball. Thibs’ ferocity and blood-boiling intensity in the way he coached on a game-to-game basis were unrelenting. His prerogative was, and still is, winning above all else, even if that means sacrificing long-term gains of playing less-experienced players. And yet, despite the gruff persona that Thibs showed to the world, he too was a glutton for nostalgia.
After one disappointing season of winning just 31 games, Thibodeau brought the band back together to relive his Chicago Bulls glory days. With Taj Gibson, Derrick Rose, and Jimmy Butler back in tow, Thibs would man the helm for the first Timberwolves team to make the playoffs since Kevin Garnett left.
Eventually, the clock ran out on Thibodeau in Minnesota because the team crumbled under his watch. When the Wolves fired Thibs, they opted for a considerable shift in persona by elevating Ryan Saunders. Towns has spoken candidly about his dissatisfaction with Thibodeau.
“We think we have the best coaching staff possibly in the game right now from a talent, experience, and just culture standpoint. And the culture we’re building here is something special. So I’m a very happy. I’m very glad now we’re introducing [Jarrett] Culver and [Jaylen Nowell] to a culture that we possess now. You know, I don’t think the situation before it would’ve been very beneficial for them. And that’s a disrespect and a slap in the face to their development, you know, and I want to make sure that they develop not only as players but as human beings and as men. And, uh, you know, that’s what we’re here to do.”
When Saunders took over, nostalgia manifested itself as an organization that seemed so hellbent on fulfilling Flip’s prophecy that they bypassed other, more experienced coaches in the hopes that the Saunders bloodline was enough to conjure some sort of magic that could put the Wolves back in contention. At the time, Towns felt like Saunders could be the right fit:
“[O]ne of the biggest things [with] Ryan and with me is like, we have to make sure our culture is not based on just basketball,” he said. “This is a family atmosphere. Everything we do here in Minnesota has to be able to have a family. A family backing and a family thought process. And building people’s personalities, characters and showing them more of themselves. And you’re more than basketball.”
Well, Towns is right. Players are more than just basketball. That’s an important thing to remember as a fan and consumer of the NBA. These are people, and people have emotions. Sentimentality is an inescapable facet of human existence. But when it comes to winning and losing basketball games, there are decisions that have to be made that go beyond the scope of emotion. Gersson Rosas fired Saunders without the opportunity ever to coach an entire regular season. So much for sentiment.
The big takeaway I have here is that the reality of the current situation has a distinct effect on how we process nostalgia. Take my college example: I can look back at a time in my life that was an overall-negative experience, filter the memories so that the positive ones remain, and look back fondly at the experience. Thankfully, I am at a place in my life that is far enough removed from the hardship that the good memories are separable.
At this moment, Towns’ basketball career is at a peak. The self-proclaimed greatest-shooting big man of all time just had a record-breaking win at the 3-point contest (although I don’t know if it technically counts because there were six more points to be had at this year’s contest, but I digress). He’s made his triumphant return to the All-Star game, seems like a shoo-in for an All-NBA nod, and, most importantly, the Timberwolves have been in the heat of the playoff chase all season long.
The nostalgia for the days of old with LaVine and Wiggins is sweet. It’s fun to think about what could have been. I think it’s incredible they all made it to the All-Star game together. Ultimately, the Wolves are in a better place now in no small part because they bucked some of the sentimental tendencies of old. The Saunders are gone, Glen Taylor is on his way out, and the Wolves are depending on new, young stars in Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels to help Towns build something great in Minnesota.
Things around the Timberwolves are better than they’ve been in a long time. The players love each other, they’ve bought into the coach’s philosophy, and, of course, they are winning. So when we think about what could have been, we can daydream and speculate. But we can always come back to the reality that things are good right here, right now.
