In an excerpt shared by The Star Tribune from his upcoming book “I’ll Show You,” Derrick Rose gives some insight on the Jimmy Butler practice situation while the two were teammates in Minnesota.
Rose explains that Butler was just upset that the Wolves paid his young teammate, Karl Anthony-Towns, before him. Butler felt he was the one who led the Wolves to the playoffs for the first time since the 03-04 season and that the young stars (Towns and Andrew Wiggins) hadn’t accomplished much if anything I’m their careers yet.
“Look, it wasn’t his fault. It’s the league’s fault. Nothing against Karl Anthony-Towns, he’s cool and he’s good. But you got these kids and you spoil them before they achieve something.” Jimmy was feeling, ‘Why’d y’all pay them first and I was the one who that got you to the playoffs?’ That’s all it was. Jimmy wasn’t doing it right, though he was right.”
In an interview with Complex, Anthony-Towns had a chance to respond to his teammates claim that he and other young players are spoiled and haven’t earned anything yet by saying
“Things are earned in this world. Especially now with Twitter, Instagram, these things are earned more than ever. People have opinions night in, night out that are utterly absurd to utterly factual. People earn what they are given; it’s been since the beginning of time until now. Nowadays younger guys are given a lot but it’s because they’ve earned that.”
Anthony-Towns also explains that the young guys in the NBA earn everything they get through their work and performance. Explains that it’s because guys are coming in younger and expected to produce at a higher level and are able to due to all kinds of social media publicity.
Is Rose or Anthony-Towns right? Should players accomplish more before they are given a big contract or are they already accomplishing enough to get a big contract?
Flip the page for the Jimmy Butler-KAT saga.