The news that Gersson Rosas was fired came as a complete shock. No matter what anyone says, there was ZERO indication that the Wolves might can their POBO with less than a week to go before training camp. Sure, some assistant coaches were leaving at questionable times, and there were some rumblings about tension within the front office. But the Numero Uno Timberwolves Plotline of the last several weeks has been Ben Simmons, and whether Gersson Rosas will be able to pry him away from his old boss Daryl Morey, as the Philly situations further deteriorates.
Nothing about Rosas losing his job before the trade could happen.
By now, Wolves fans understand the two basic parts of the story: the background front office tension stuff, and the inappropriate office relationship stuff. Jon Krawczynski, as always, delivered the full story Wednesday night for The Athletic.
Hired two years ago to replace Tom Thibodeau as the Timberwolves president of basketball operations, Rosas’s authority over the franchise has has always seemed near-complete. (Eds note: Well, with the exception of the initial head-coaching hiring, which I maintain was Glen Taylor’s work.) Whether it was hiring front office and assistant coaching staff, making trades, taking Taylor’s payroll over the luxury tax in a losing season, acquiring D’Angelo Russell at substantial draft-pick cost, firing and hiring the head coach on the same midseason evening, or going full-steam into the public Ben Simmons trade rumors, Rosas was always the man in charge. There was no evidence in the public domain that would prepare us for even the remote possibility that he’d be canned, less than a week before the break of training camp.
But, these are the Timberwolves, and surprise is the norm. Whatever is supposed to happen, the other thing is usually the safer bet. Rosas is now gone, and we all wonder what’s next. But this event itself requires some proper digestion before moving onto that.
For what should Gersson Rosas, Timberwolves POBO, be remembered?
Let’s begin most recently and most generously. The positive side of the Rosas Legacy Ledger includes the 2020 Draft, when he acquired Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels, each of whom outperformed expectations in their rookie campaigns. He also drafted Leandro Bolmaro, who arrives this season with some buzz. These young players form the reasonable basis for hope of a brighter future — even if it still might take a while. Rosas deserves credit for getting them.
He also hired Chris Finch, and so far/so good on that one. Low threshold as it was, Finch outperformed his predecessor after grabbing the reigns midseason without any familiarity with the Timberwolves or their players. Finch’s no-bullshit personality is refreshing, and seems in step with Ant’s. Rosas entered a uniquely Timberwolvesian dilemma with the Ryan Saunders baggage. Was it possible for him to get hired without keeping Ryan on as coach? Maybe, maybe not — my best guess is that had he signaled to Glen Taylor in interviews that he would hire a different coach, his chances of getting the POBO job would’ve gone down, even if not totally eliminated. It took him a season and a half to wrangle out of the mess, but he was able to eventually hire someone who seems qualified and ready to succeed as an NBA head coach. Kudos for that.
The negatives outweigh the positives, however, and it isn’t particularly close at this point.
Least tangible, and therefore most susceptible to argument over its actual importance, is the culture that was molded in Rosas’s image. Even if the Summer 2019 Anti Thibs Campaign was your cup of tea, it should not have taken long to sense that something wasn’t quite right about the new POBO and the words that would come out of his mouth.
He lost his benefit of the doubt with me when he so adamantly endorsed Saunders as the absolute best candidate for the job. Like: there were ways to massage that question where we know what you can and cannot say — how about, “You know, Ryan and I have a relationship and I have great respect for his coaching mind, and I really thought his familiarity with this group was an asset that outweighed the potential benefits of hiring someone from the outside.”
No no. With Rosas, everything was big and bold, laid on thick. Ryan was the BEST candidate for the job. Whether it was Juwan Howard or David Vanterpool or even if Gregg Popovich signaled a desire to move north to end his career, none had stronger credentials than Ryan. Either Rosas was being honest and stupid, or straight-up lying to us. Which is worse? For me, it didn’t really matter, I guess, even if I think I know the answer.
It went on from there. There was the incessant preaching of the Timberwolves being a “family,” while almost every player was out there dangling on the trade block. It took Rosas half a season to rid himself of 90% of the original “Bahamas” crew. A pro-sports executive being transactional in nature is fine, but maybe just cut the bullshit already. And why was he socializing with these guys to begin with? That part always seemed a little off to me, but maybe I misunderstand the business.
No two personalities are the same, and not everyone must speak with the blunt-force candidness of a Charles Barkley. The late Flip Saunders, in my experience around him for one season, was a good example of someone whose words may not always have been true if taken literally, but his tone conveyed what he meant, often in a friendly or even entertaining way. With Rosas, if you were paying attention (note: not blinded by Anti Thibs Euphoria), you soon detected things were a bit shadier. And for an organization professing such obsession with top-to-bottom culture, such disingenuous vibes raining from the top could not have been a good thing.
A final thing that always bugged me about the Rosas Culture: the team’s constant, public celebration of all the hard work it was supposedly doing. The videos of offseason workouts or drills in practice, the photos of Rosas on the damn telephone during the draft in which he didn’t actually own any picks. (FFS.) Let somebody else describe that background stuff for you (like Thibs does!) — it’s more convincing, especially when the game results actually validate the preparation.
Okay, now more tangibly. A lot of the basketball stuff was bad, too.
I’ll start with a caveat to this, of sorts. Actually, I’ll just paste in some more tweets on the subject — my Twitter-to-Blogging ratio has been way off for a while now, so bear with me while I recycle my own takes:
Rosas did enter a somewhat unique situation here. Low morale and a deep desire for change were not neatly aligned with the roster situation. His team had legitimate talent, some of it still young and improving. He also possessed all of his future first round picks, which is the main “flexibility” currency that exists in the league today. But, to be fair to Rosas, a couple of things were also apparent: (1) without Jimmy Butler, the team no longer had a championship upside, as presently constructed; and (2) they were carrying some large Kahntracts. And, I suppose, (3) It is natural and understandable for a new POBO to want to build the team in his or her own image.
This is to say that Rosas was not handed a blank canvass with unlimited possibilities.
But the job is to work with what you’ve got — within reality — not with what you wish you had.
Rosas’s primary asset was Karl-Anthony Towns, set to begin his 5th NBA season. Towns was one of the more heralded young players in recent league history, a player whose reputational arc and self-consciousness needed to factor into the team’s decision-making. Towns had been unanimous rookie of the year, the two-time “player most GMs would choose first to build around,” and all that. By his third season he was All-NBA and in the playoffs. And Rosas was taking over after KAT’s first real adversity, faced with the question of whether and to what extent he could retool the roster while keeping the ship sailing on the Towns Timeline.
I think it’s clear by now that… well, let’s just paste in more tweets on the subject:
Instead of tinkering with this or that, Rosas moved Karl Towns into a fallout shelter before dropping a nuclear bomb on Tom Thibodeau’s roster. Dario Saric: Donated to Phoenix for the exciting opportunity to draft Jarrett Culver with the 6th pick, rather than somebody like Tyler Herro or Cameron Johnson with the 11th. Taj Gibson and Derrick Rose? Bye, go play for Thibs again instead. RoCo, I don’t care how close you’ve become to Towns or that you play defense — you’re outta here. Tyus Jones, everybody likes you, but you cost too much. Go help the Grizzlies win, we’re not trying to do that here.
In place of these Serious NBA Players were guys who either weren’t drafted, or maybe shouldn’t have been drafted.
Whether by design or negligence, the Rosas roster moves amounted to a “half measure.” I’ll allow Mike Ehrmantraut to explain what can happen with half measures.
Inheriting a 5th year Karl Towns with a declining-for-the-first-time-ever reputation, he really had 1 of 2 options: (1) make the team better; or (2) start from scratch. Instead, by going the half measure and wanting to have his cake and eat it too, he proceeded to waste precious entire seasons (plural) from his best player’s prime.
And I haven’t even gotten to the D’Lo trade yet!
Another half measure of epic proportions.
Rosas paid a large premium to swap Andrew Wiggins for D’Angelo Russell: a barely-protected first round pick in the much-anticipated 2021 NBA Draft. Clearly, a move such as this one would signal that he and the organization were now prepared to move forward on some serious #winning. They’d probably acquire a few additional veteran role players to round out a rotation that could credibly vie for a playoff berth. At minimum, they’d add a real power forward, one would think. After all, nobody sends out first round picks while they’re tanking…
Right?
Well, it turns out Gersson Rosas does, and the cost has been immense. Last year’s team won 23 and lost 49, surrendered the 7th overall pick, Jonathan Kuminga, to our good friends in Golden State, and even now is projected by Las Vegas to win something like 33 games. The chatter about a KAT trade on the horizon is picking up predictable steam. If they don’t somehow acquire Ben Simmons, a full rebuild, with And & Jaden, and without Towns & Russell, seems all but inevitable. That could be okay, in time, but if the intentional roster moves were going to steer it this way, there should never have been the needless waste of KAT’s multiple prime seasons, and especially not a precious lottery pick in the middle of all the carnage.
It’s easy to slide into hyperbole when discussing how bad a Wolves president was. Many did it with Thibs. I’m not trying to do it here with Rosas. But he inherited a team whose best player was young and under long-term contract, and he leaves it in worse shape than he found it, by preseason over/under standards. Rosas wanted to make a splash with D’Angelo Russell, but he never gave his new “core” a chance at realistic success. He also just plain overrated D’Lo. His best moves, ironically enough, were his most recent, and we’ll never know how he would’ve navigated the parallel terrains of KAT’s uncertain future in Minneapolis and Ben Simmons’s in Philly. My best prediction was what it still is: that we’re headed toward a full rebuild around Ant and whomever else. Hopefully we’ll at least have a clearer sense of what the plan is.
No more half measures.
Punch-Drunk Wolves 
This is great. I agree he was not trying to win in 2019 (at least I hope he wasn’t). Rosas was a star hunter. He inherited one star and has tried to use trades and draft to acquire 2 additional stars. I don’t think he cared much about how the team performed while he was star hunting. I also think he will (would) trade anyone who is not a star. They are a nonentity, but sometimes an asset useful to acquire a star or potential star.
His pursuit of stars has had at best mixed results. Wiggins is not a star. Saric and Jones are not stars. Culver was a potential star so he traded them. I think this “star hunting” explains Rosas well. It helps me make sense out of the trades and the lack of winning. Making sense of it does not imply I agree with the approach or that he executed it well.
I guess my point is that if Rosas’ goal was to win, he is an epically bad GM, even taking into account injuries. If his goal was to star hunt (and then win), his record is more mixed, but clearly not a success.
I think star hunting helps make sense of keeping KAT while losing. Again, doesn’t mean it was a good decision.
Thank you for writing this. Really enjoyed reading it.
No way is this team worse than what he inherited. This team has a ton more promise and talent than what Thibs left him. However, similar to how the Vikings Spielman ignores the offensive line…Rosas ignores rebounding and defense. That said….Rosas was on his way to building a pretty decent team…albeit a flawed one.
Enjoyed reading the insightful article. I will make sure to read more from this writer and visit this website often.