First, the Timberwolves trade Kevin Garnett to the Celtics, the team that caused me so much pain during my adolescent years.
Then, last week, Mark Madsen, arguably the worst player and second best blogger in the NBA, injured his shoulder in a jet skiing accident.
And yesterday, a man who drove into a moving train in Houston and whose charred remains needed to be identified by dental records turned out to be former Timberwolf Eddie Griffin. He had his share of troubles, which included alcoholism, violence, and masturbating to porn while driving down University Avenue in Minneapolis. But, as Brown Recluse at freedarko so cogently noted, the guy likely had a mental illness that (he and others) couldn't get help with:
...many people in this country in situations completely dissimilar from Griffin’s suffer from mental illness that is not identified and treated adequately. The unwillingness of people to even discuss this issue in this case illustrates how far we as a society have to go in the way we deal with mental illness.I realize that diagnosis-through-media isn't always accurate but Griffin's depression issues were frequently acknowledged. It seems too obvious to say everyone should get the help they need. But it needs to be said anyway.
As a postscript, I want to make it clear that I’m not absolving Griffin of personal responsibility, but to some extent, blaming Eddie Griffin for not cleaning up his act and becoming a stand-up citizen is equivalent to asking someone with Parkinson’s if they could please stop twitching all the time.
And finally, today, Latrell Sprewell, the player who truly revitalized the team in the early '00s and helped propel them deep in the playoffs, had his yacht repossessed in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
I don't really have a conclusion to reach about all this news. It just hasn't been a good summer for the Wolves. But the new season starts in two months. So... hope.
2 comments:
Hey. I just finished "The Sportswriter." You told me not too long ago that it was an important book to you. What did you read before that? What did you read after? How did your perspective change?
Hey Jasonymous. What did I read before The Sportswriter? I actually read the Minneapolis noir Falling Up the Stairs by James Lileks. It was a brilliant book (at least to me, at the time). It was a intricately woven complex mystery about journalism, family, socialism, and sex. I loved that book. Sadly, its author is now a semi-crazed neo-con blogger.
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