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After COVID-19 devastated his family, Karl-Anthony Towns announced on Friday evening that he had contracted the coronavirus himself.
The Minnesota Timberwolves star – who has already lost his mother and six other family members to the coronavirus – revealed he contracted the coronavirus just hours before they were supposed to house the Memphis Grizzlies in Minneapolis .
This game has been postponed by the league, marking the 13th postponement so far this season. All but one arrived last week.
Cities, he wrote on Twitter, are now isolated.
“I pray every day that this nightmare of a virus is gone and I urge everyone to continue to take it seriously by taking all necessary precautions,” Towns wrote on Twitter. “We cannot stop the spread of this virus alone, it must be a collective effort by all of us. It breaks my heart that my family, and especially my father and sister, continue to suffer from the anxiety that accompanies this diagnosis because we know only too well what the end result could be.
Towns, said Timberwolves president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas, is one of two people who have returned positive tests to the organization in the past two days.
“For him to have to go through this… it’s heartbreaking,” Rosas said, via Chris Hine of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “It hurts. Karl is the most important part of this organization. For what he’s been through and what Karl Sr. has been through, it’s heartbreaking.
Cities have lost seven family members to COVID
Cities have suffered perhaps more than anyone in the world of sport last year.
The 25-year-old mother, Jacqueline, died in April from the coronavirus. Jacqueline, a nurse, has been placed in a medically induced coma – which initially prompted Towns to urge Americans to start taking the pandemic seriously.
He later revealed that six other family members, including his uncle and grandmother, had also died from the coronavirus.
Of course, basketball didn’t seem very important to him after that.
“I don’t even recognize most of my other games and the years that I played and how I felt those days,” Towns said last month after losing a double double in their season opener. “If I can be honest with you for a second, I mean, I don’t really remember or I don’t care. I only understand what happened from April 13th.
“Because you can see me smile and all that, but Karl died on April 13th.” He never comes back, I don’t remember this man. You talk to the physical self, but my soul was killed a long time ago.
Towns, who is in his sixth year in the league, has only played four games this season for Minnesota with a lingering wrist injury. The former No. 1 overall pick averaged 26.5 points and 10.8 rebounds per game last season.
The NBA postponed three more games on Friday due to the pandemic, bringing the total to 13 under a month in the 2020-21 season. All of these postponements except one took place last week – prompting the league to introduce new health and safety protocols.
Despite calls from Towns and others, the pandemic is raging in the United States like never before. The country recorded more than 238,000 new cases as of Thursday alone, according to the New York Times, and nearly 4,000 new deaths. More than 4,400 people died on Tuesday, an all-time record.
“It’s a lesson for all of us,” Rosas said, via ESPN’s Malika Andrews. “Basketball is a microcosm of society right now… This virus is powerful.”
Towns then ended his post with a commitment to his family.
“To my niece and nephew, Jolani and Max, I promise you I won’t end up in a box next to Grandma and I’ll beat that,” he wrote.
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