Timberwolves: Pale in comparison to the rest of the NBA
Everybody, in this case, being black teammates. Come opening night on Friday, Cunningham will be one of five black players on a 15-man Wolves team that has reversed the National Basketball Association's historical racial percentages with a roster that is the league's whitest since the Boston Celtics teams of the 1980s.
"How did we get a roster that resembles the 1955 Lakers?" Terrell said to the Star-Tribune. "I think everything is a strategy. Nothing happens by happenstance."
When everyone's healthy, the Wolves will start Love alongside Europeans Ricky Rubio, Andrei Kirilenko, Nikola Pekovic and American Brandon Roy, a three-time former All-Star who in attempting a retirement comeback on degenerative knees is their only black starter.
Roy said he never noticed the distinction until a friend mentioned it after he signed as a free agent with the Wolves in July.
"It's just basketball," Roy said. "I never really had to feel like I'm the only black guy out here. I've played on teams that maybe had all black guys and the feeling is just the same when I'm out there on the floor playing with these guys.
"The only problem we have is in the weight room, arguing over what music we're going to listen to."
The Wolves targeted free agents Nicolas Batum and Jordan Hill -- both young, promising black players -- the moment free agency began last summer.
They painstakingly re- configured their roster so they could make Batum a $45 million-plus offer sheet that Portland matched. They offered Hill more money than his team did, but he chose to return to the powerful Lakers, and a chance to win a NBA title.
"What if Batum and Hill were here?" Kahn asked.
Instead, the Wolves' major offseason signing was Kirilenko, a former All-Star who's seven years older but has a game similar to that of Batum, to a two-year, $20 million contract.
"We're dealing with guys we thought could help us," veteran coach Rick Adelman said. "It just happened that's how the whole thing worked out. I don't think there's anybody we have here who isn't a proven NBA player.''
Both Kahn and Adelman insist each player individually was chosen for his unique skills and collectively for their athleticism, whether, like bouncy Kirilenko, Chase Budinger and Alexey Shved, they are white or they are black.
SOURCE: Timberwolves: Pale in comparison to the rest of the NBA | StarTribune.com