Denver Nuggets head coach David Adelman reflected on the recent unrest in Minneapolis before Tuesday's game against the Detroit Pistons. The coach expressed heartbreak over the events in a city he once called home.
“Yeah, not politically, but just as a human being. That's really hard to watch,” Adelman said, via Ryan Blackburn of Mile High Sports. “I 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, and watching that video and trying to explain it to them makes you realize that, I don't know what the hell's going on either.”
Adelman's comments come after Saturday's fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse from the Minneapolis area. The NBA postponed that evening's Minnesota Timberwolves-Golden State Warriors game, following widespread protests and citing concerns for the safety of the Minneapolis community.
Adelman spent five years as an assistant with the Timberwolves from 2011 to 2016. He even recognized the neighborhood in which the incident occurred from aerial footage.
“Yeah, it's extremely hard to watch. That's a great community of people. 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,” said Adelman. “And from the drone shot, it looked like a war zone. And that's the country we live in.”
The first-year Nuggets coach emphasized unity over political division.
“So it's just, I just hope we can figure it out,” said Adelman. “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.”
