Wednesday, December 30, 2020

J-Speaks: The New Reality For Timberwolves All-Star Center Because of COVID-19


The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic has taken a lot from us in 2020. It has taken from a lot of us our lively hoods, personal relationships, and changed our feelings towards many things in life. The Coronavirus has more than anything taken over 330,000 of our friends and family. No matter if you were wealthy or not, this pandemic has changed all of us and for a number of people their lives will never be the same. No one understands this better than one of the National Basketball Association’s young star players of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who life was changed forever because of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

A week ago, two-time All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns of the Minnesota Timberwolves began his sixth NBA season, hoping to put what was an awful fifth NBA season in the rearview mirror.

For most of his life, Towns was known as someone who played basketball from a young age growing up in Edison, NJ where he rise to stardom began at St. Joseph High School, to his lone collegiate season playing for the University of Kentucky and head coach John Calipari.

In June 2015, Towns was selected as the No. 1 overall pick by the Timberwolves and won Kia Rookie of the Year and was named to the 2016 NBA All-Rookie First Team. Two years later he earned the first to back-to-back All-Star selections and made the All-NBA Third Team in 2018.

Then came the 2019-20 NBA season where the 25-year-old Towns not only struggled through the first injury plagued season of his NBA career (playing in only 35 games) but the Timberwolves missed the playoffs for the 15th time in the last 16 seasons. Their season abruptly ended early on Mar. 11 because of the COVID-19 Pandemic and were they were one of eight NBA teams not invited to the NBA’s restart in Orlando, FL.

If that was not bad enough for Towns, he lost his mother Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, who was one of the early casualties on Apr. 13. While Towns’ father, Karl. Sr. also contracted the virus he was able to recover.  

On Mar. 25, Towns expressed his emotions in a video that he posted on Instagram that explained his mother was placed on a ventilator and was in a medically induced coma as a result of the virus, which led to her death. Mrs. Cruz-Towns was 58 years old.

Towns not only lost his mom effervescent, who lit up every room she walked into, he lost his biggest cheerleader who was the first to congratulate him with a hug when he got drafted six years ago. Attended all the Timberwolves home game. She was also by his side at charity events.

“It always brought me a smile when I saw my mom at the baseline and in the stands and stuff, and having a good time watching me play,” Towns said. “It is going to be hard to play. It’s going to be difficult to say this is therapy. I don’ think [playing basketball] will ever be therapy for me again. But it gives me a chance to relive good memories I had.”

He posted several videos to his social media which detailed his ordeal as he cared for his sick mother, and his feelings after she died. He said that he felt it necessary to share those videos in order for people to better understand the ramifications of COVID-19.

“I didn’t want people to feel the way I felt,” Towns said. “I wanted to try to keep them from having the ordeal and the situation I was going through. It just came from a place that I didn’t want people to feel as lonely and upset as I was. I really made that video just to protect others and keep others well-informed, even though I knew it was going to take the most emotionally out of me that I’ve ever been asked to do.”

Towns was particularly transparent about how devastating the passing of his mom was in an 18-minute mini-documentary YouTube early last month entitled, “The Toughest Year of My Life.”  

What took even more out of Towns was the loss of six other family members due to complications from COVID-19.

“I’ve seen a lot of coffins in the last seven, eight months,” Towns said. “I have a lot of people who have—in my family and my mom’s family gotten COVID. I’m the one looking for answers still, trying to find how to keep them healthy. It’s just a lot of responsibility, you know. A lot of responsibility on me to keep my family well-informed and to make all the moves necessary to keep them alive.”

The help of his teammates, guard D’Angelo Russell in particular is what helped Towns navigate in the weeks after the passing of his mother. He received a plethora of supportive phone calls and text messages from all members of the Timberwolves organization, especially from head coach Ryan Saunders, who lost his father in former Timberwolves, Detroit Pistons, and Washington Wizards head coach Philip “Flip” Saunders died on Oct. 25, 2015 after a two-month and 14-day battle against Hodgkin’s lymphoma that he was diagnosed with on Aug. 11, 2015. The now 34-year-old Saunders lost his dad at age 29 when his dad was just age 60. Towns’ new teammate in lead guard Ricky Rubio, who was acquired in the offseason lost his mother when he was just 25 years old.

When the Timberwolves played their first preseason game on Dec. 12 versus the Memphis Grizzlies, it really Towns that he was playing his first game without his mother, let alone any fans in the Target Center that he could not even get off the sidelines during the introduction of the starting lineups.

How difficult of a night was that first game for Towns, he was just 4 for 13 from the field, including 0 for 5 from three-point range for 13 points, eight rebounds and three block shots.

While the emotions remained fresh, Towns’ production was per usual with 22 points, 11 rebounds seven assists, and two block shots on 6 for 10 shooting, including 2 for 4 from three-point range in the Timberwolves’ (2-2) 111-101 win versus the Detroit Pistons (0-4) in their season opener at home on Dec. 23 as they outscored the Pistons 31-16 in the fourth quarter to overcome a 12-point deficit in the third quarter.

Before the game, the Timberwolves held a moment of silence during pregame as well as had a video tribute for Mrs. Cruz-Towns.

In his postgame interview with Timberwolves sideline reporter for FOX Sports North Marney Gellner, Towns said that he was going to give the game ball to his father to put next to his mother.

“It was heavy,” Towns, who made the Timberwolves first field goal of the game after a 0 for 7 start to their home opener said to Gellner about the emotions he played with in memory of his mother. “It was different, you know. It’s just always different. I’m just happy I got this for her. I told her I wanted to get her this win and get her this ball, so I’m was just happy to be able to get it done.”

In the span of eight months, life for all of us changed because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic. We all lost something from either our lively hoods to family and friends or both.

For Karl-Anthony Towns, his foundation was altered not only with the loss of his mother Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, but he lost six other family members, and nearly lost his father as well because of the Coronavirus.

His life changed forever, and while he still can do what he has done for nearly two decades in not just play basketball for a living, but he is playing in the NBA.

While being able to compete at the highest level of basketball competition of the National Basketball Association (NBA), might take his mind of what has happened to him in 2020, Towns will never be the same person because his biggest cheerleader and one constant in his life I his mother Jacqueline Cruz-Towns is no longer here to route her son on.

Life will eventually get back to normal where most of us will work or find new work and be able to hug, love, and be present for our family and friends again. But no matter if you have or have not lost someone that meant a great deal to you, how everyone sees life will never be the same again.

“I don’t even recognize most of my other games and year I’ve played, and how I’ve felt those days. I don’t really recall or really care,” Towns, who registered his 180th career double-double (most since the 2015-16 season) said in his virtual postgame press conference after the Timberwolves win versus the Pistons.

“I only know what I’ve been through from Apr. 13 on. You may see me smiling and stuff, but that Karl died on Apr. 13. He’s never coming back. I don’t remember that man. I don’t know that man. You’re talking to the physical me, but my soul has been killed off a long time ago….”

“I only know how I feel from Apr. 13 on, and to say it’s been day-by-day is probably an understatement. I think it’s moment-by-moment.” 

Towns added about how he plans to be for his Timberwolves teammates moving forward, “No matter how bad my situation is, how [expletive] my life is, I’m gonna keep being here for these guys. I’m gonna let them see me smile even though inside I’m not smiling whatsoever. I owe that to these guys as a leader, I owe that to them as a teammate.”

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 12/4/2020 www.espn.com story, “Timberwolves’ Karl-Anthony Towns Says Season Will Be Difficult Amid Off-Court Tragedies,” by Malika Andrews; 12/15/2020 3 p.m. “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN with Rachel Nichols, Amin Elhassan, and Paul Pierce; 12/23/2020 2 a.m. edition of ESPN’s “Sportscenter” from Los Angeles, CA with Linda Cohn and Stan Verrett; 12/24/2020 www.espn.com story, “Emotional Karl-Anthony Towns Reflects on How He Has Changed Following First Game Since Mother’s Death,” by Royce Young; https://www.espn.com/nba/game?gameid=401265833; https://www.espn.com/nba/recap/boxscore?gameid=401267178; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Saunders; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_Saunders.  

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