Minnesota’s NBA franchise, the
Timberwolves, have caught some flak early this season for the team’s racial
composition. The team is 70% white,
including four-fifths of tis starting lineup, in a league that is 93% black. Civil rights leaders have complained that the
Timberwolves have intentionally constructed their roster to appeal to the
team’s predominantly white fan base. Minnesota’s best player, Kevin Love, is
the NBA’s most prominent American-born white player, though the core of the team
also includes white players from Spain and Russia. The Timberwolves’ general
manager, David Kahn, has defended the roster’s international composition, as
well as through the notion that the ultimate goal is to compose a team that
wins, regardless of color.
The Timberwolves should not have to
deal with accusations that their team is too racially skewed in one direction
or the other. As Kahn asserts, the team
includes players from multiple countries, its starting shooting guard (Brandon
Roy) is black, and the team made lucrative free agent offers in the offseason
to black forwards Jordan Hill and Nicolas Batum, who accepted the contract’s
terms but whose original team exercised their right to match the offer and
retain him. Moreover, by indicting the team for trying to appeal to a white fan
base, the civil rights leaders are really indicting the intolerance of the fan
base, not the team. Recent history does
not support that attitude.
In 1995, the Minnesota Timberwolves
bucked years of traditional thought by spending its top draft pick on a high
school player (a practice since outlawed by the league), 7’0” black forward
Kevin Garnett. Garnett spent a full
decade as the unquestioned face of the franchise. During that time, Minnesota did not struggle
with complaints that the team was catering to a particular racial fan base, nor
did they struggle with low attendance figures. The reason is evident: Garnett,
now an NBA champion with the Boston Celtics, has been the Timberwolves greatest
player and only certain Hall of Famer. The team enjoyed great success and
notoriety with Garnett on the roster, and since he’s left, the Timberwolves
have not had one winning season. The
activists criticizing the Timberwolves should show more respect for the team’s
fan base and acknowledge that Minnesota is more likely trying to adhere to the
model that has, across all sports, proven most successful in raising attendance
and television ratings: if you win, they will watch.
