David Adelman couldn’t make sense of what he was watching, but he could make out the neighborhood. Minneapolis was his first NBA home. He knew the city well. Just not in this ravaged state.
“That’s a great community of people,” the first-year head coach of the Nuggets said. “I lived there for five years. And it was just so weird to see exactly where it was in the city, because I knew exactly where it was. And from the drone shot, it looked like a war zone. And that’s the country we live in.”
Before the Nuggets hosted the Pistons on Tuesday night, Adelman took a moment to reflect on the unrest in Minneapolis and the death of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was fatally shot by federal agents last Saturday.
“Just as a human being, that’s really hard to watch,” he said. “I’d say beyond that, if you want to look at this in layers, how do you explain it to your kids? It’s tough. My kids are of an age where they know what’s going on. Watching that video and trying to explain it to them makes you realize that I don’t know what the hell is going on either.”
The NBA postponed last Saturday’s game between the Timberwolves and Warriors “to prioritize the safety and security of the Minneapolis community” after the shooting of Pretti, according to a statement from the league.
The game was made up on Sunday, with anti-ICE chants echoing through Target Center at the end of a pregame moment of silence for Pretti. The day before Pretti’s death, mass protests had been held in Minneapolis speaking out against the federal government’s deployment of ICE to enforce Donald Trump’s immigration policy. Renee Good was shot and killed on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis amid the crackdown.
“For the second time in less than three weeks, we’ve lost another beloved member of our community in the most unimaginable way,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said through tears on Sunday. “As an organization, we are heartbroken for what we are having to witness and endure and watch. We just want to extend our thoughts, prayers and concern for Mr. Pretti, family, all the loved ones and everyone involved in such an unconscionable situation in a community that we really love, full of people who are, by nature, peaceful and prideful. We just stand in support of our great community here.”
Adelman, 44, was an assistant coach for the Timberwolves under his father, Naismith Hall of Famer Rick Adelman, from 2011-16. It was his first job in the NBA in a career that eventually led him to Denver, where he replaced Michael Malone as the Nuggets’ head coach in April.
In Denver, protesters held a rally against ICE and the Trump administration’s immigration policy on Sunday at the Capitol.
“It’s not about politics,” Adelman said. “It’s about human beings just taking care of each other, even if you don’t agree with each other. So yeah, extremely hard to watch. … I just hope we can figure it out. It’s supposed to be a bipartisan country. Hopefully, we can do that, come together. Whatever your main political views are, let’s not shoot each other.”