This isn’t just another puff piece by a Minnesota Timberwolves fan celebrating Karl-Anthony Towns.
As much as I would love to flood the internet with more positivity and reveling in Towns’ most recent accomplishment, I’ve actually been thinking about why I’ve been rooting for Towns to win the championship this postseason.
When watching an NBA game, my flowchart of “Who am I rooting for?” has usually gone something like this:
- Are they the Timberwolves?
- If they aren’t, which team’s victory/loss would benefit the Timberwolves more?
- Which team’s victory/loss would lead to the Timberwolves catching fewer straws?
*Just as important, everything would be inverse if you replace Timberwolves with Lakers
During the 2026 NBA Finals, all indications should’ve pointed towards me rooting for the San Antonio Spurs. If the Spurs won it all, it would likely mean they would keep the team together. A team that the injury-riddled Wolves took to six games (astronomical point differential aside). A San Antonio loss would likely prompt them to add more firepower in the offseason, rebalancing their roster along the way. Additionally, Minnesota losing to the eventual champs sounds a lot better than losing to the eventual runner-up.
Additionally, a New York Knicks victory should be to the Wolves’ demise. Fans and talking heads would be champing at the bit to ridicule Minnesota for giftwrapping banner number two to New York in the form of Towns. In fact, Towns would be just the latest top-10 draft pick that the Wolves failed to build around, then traded, and then won the Larry O’Brien Trophy in just two seasons with their new team. Meanwhile, the bulk of the Timberwolves’ offseason content is about how they can try to trade one of the players they received in that very same trade.
By this logic, rooting against the Knicks should have been a no-brainer.
However, I still found myself pulling for New York. I was willing to ignore my aforementioned flowchart even if it came at the expense of my favorite team. Why was watching Towns claw his way towards a title with the Knicks so much different than, say, Andrew Wiggins with the Golden State Warriors four years ago? I’ve met both players face-to-face multiple times, and they were always nothing but pleasant to me. They both tried, to the best of their own respective abilities, to win in Minnesota without ever the peep of a trade request.
It was because of how I personally viewed these individuals as humans.
My admiration for Towns has already been detailed here on Canis Hoopus. He’s someone who, by multiple accounts, is a grade A person off the court. Whether it’s been within the local Minnesota community or as someone who regularly uses his platform to uplift the disenfranchised, Towns is someone that I’ve always been proud to root for. It’s always been about more than basketball with him.
Conversely, I wrote a whole piece about players I love rooting against four years ago. So much angst, Leo! So, have I just become soft now? Has the birth of my first child turned me into a “snowflake” who just wants everyone to get along? I doubt that very much.
What I’ve grown to realize over the years is that everything shouldn’t have to be in binaries. Just because I was rooting for Towns didn’t mean I was rooting against the Wolves. That didn’t even mean I was rooting against Victor Wembanyama, who was openly critical of ICE activity in Minnesota, nor the Spurs franchise, who are one of the NBA organizations most openly critical of our current government.
On the flip side, rooting for Towns didn’t mean I was rooting for former Wolves assistant coach Eric Daniel “Rick” Brunson, given the previous sexual assault allegation raised against him. It didn’t mean I was rooting for James Dolan and his laundry list of transgressions (including an eerily similar SA allegation). There are often both good and bad people on both sides. And there are usually more than just two sides.
Can I root for an athlete even if they play on a team with a rotten owner, or have rotten teammates?
Can I root for a musical artist even if they’re signed to a rotten label?
That’s perhaps a different discussion for another day, but in this particular case, I find it easier to cheer for and follow athletes who are simply good people and not overanalyze the rest.
People like Ricky Rubio, who has had huge success the last couple of years playing with his first professional team, Joventut Badalona (sadly, they just got eliminated in the semi-finals of the Spanish Liga ACB playoffs), while continuing to do great work in the cancer research arena with his foundation.
People like Gorgui Dieng, who has continued to pour into his home country of Senegal, uplifting the youth and sports communities along the way. This is why Canis Hoopus writes stories about these former players, all three of whom were recipients of NBA Cares Community Assist awards.
There will always be people who root for players for different reasons. Some may root for players that have an aesthetically pleasing style of hooping (Curry, Kyrie). Some may root for players of the high school jock ilk (Kobe, or the ringless Jimmy Butler). Some may not even care about the players themselves, as long as they help bring a championship to your favorite team.
People will try to change you or ridicule you for your choice.
But this is a reminder that it is always okay to root for good people.
