3 biggest mistakes of Gersson Rosas' tenure as the Minnesota Timberwolves' former president of basketball operations
Gersson Rosas officially joined the Minnesota Timberwolves on May 1, 2019, with years of NBA front office experience under his belt. He walked into a situation where the complementary talent of franchise cornerstone Karl-Anthony Towns was simply not cutting it.
Formerly being a part of Daryl Morey's team for the Houston Rockets, it was expected that Gersson Rosas would be active in trade conversations as a way to improve Minnesota. Rosas made a handful of transactions during his short tenure, but they clearly were not enough in the eyes of the Timberwolves' new ownership, which includes MLB legend Alex Rodriguez.
While drafting Anthony Edwards with the first overall selection holds major promise for the franchise moving forward, it is likely that the Wolves did not want to have a poor enough record where they were selecting first.
He was fired on September 22nd, 2021, seemingly to the surprise of Karl-Anthony Towns.
wtf…
Here are the three worst moves made by Gersson Rosas during his time in Minnesota that may have led to his departure.
#3 The Robert Covington four-team trade
In a complicated four-team deal, the Gersson Rosas led Minnesota Timberwolves sent out Robert Covington, Keita Bates-Diop, Jordan Bell, and Noah Vonleh for a return of Malik Beasley, Juancho Hernangomez, Evan Turner, Jared Vanderbilt, and the 17th overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft.
Evan Turner never played for the Timberwolves and Jared Vanderbilt spent a majority of his time in the G-League. Juancho Hernangomez is still attempting to secure a role in the NBA, and was just recently traded to the Los Angeles Clippers along with Jarrett Culver (who will be mentioned in depth later) in exchange for Patrick Beverley.
The 17th overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft (Aleksej Pokusevski) was moved to the Oklahoma City Thunder along with James Johnson in exchange for Ricky Rubio, pick 25, and pick 28 (Jaden McDaniels). Pick 25 was then used along with an additional future second-rounder to move up to pick 23 and select Leandro Bolmaro. Bolmaro has contributed zero NBA minutes thus far, but is expected to join Minnesota in 2021-22.
Malik Beasley as a primary return is not half bad, but with him entering restricted free agency, Gersson Rosas was compelled to shell out a four-year/$60-million deal the following offseason to keep him around. Gersson Rosas could have potentially offered that deal, which the Denver Nuggets likely would have been hesitant to match, without needing to give up the assets he did.
Jaden McDaniels seems to be a steal considering where he was selected and Bolmaro is an unknown, but moving down from pick 17 is questionable. The Timberwolves were known to be extremely thin at point guard the year before (another Gersson Rosas criticism), so you can't help but wonder if acquiring Rubio was a chief motive in this deal.
While essentially moving Robert Covington for a return of Malik Beasley, Jaden McDaniels and Leandro Bolmaro doesn't seem horrible, it could be viewed as contradictory for a team that was supposedly trying to win in the near future.
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