DENVER — In the early stages of his professional basketball career, you could tell within the first few possessions of his first shift if any given night was going to go good or bad for Naz Reid.

If it started well, it would continue going well. If it started poorly, well, you get it.

Reid would look great one night and horrible the next. The inconsistency made it nearly impossible to gauge what type of player the big man would become. After all, you are what you can repeatedly do.

And if Reid couldn’t overcome a bad play or two early in the game to right the ship on any given night, it was tough to see him gaining traction in any meaningful way in the NBA.

Luckily for Minnesota, the 24-year-old reminded everyone just how far he’s come in the mental and emotional aspects of the game in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinal series against Denver.

After a poor first series to open the postseason and a poor first half Saturday in Denver, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch came into the locker room at halftime to challenge not just Reid, but the entire bench unit. The reserves were supposed to be Minnesota’s strength in this series, and they were badly outplayed through the first two quarters. The head coach wasn’t having it.

“I felt that they all responded, we felt that they responded,” Wolves assistant coach Micah Nori said. “Especially Naz.”

Reid tallied three assists, three rebounds, a steal and all 16 of his points in the second half, including 14 points in the final period to help the Wolves hold off the Nuggets. Sure, there was a little luck along the way — a banked-in three-pointer as the shot clock expired in the middle of the fourth quarter truly seemed to lift the lid off the hoop for the big man.

“I just got it up. I guess I had good touch,” Reid said. “Went in.”

There was no stopping him from that point forward. Whenever the Nuggets tried to land a punch, as they are wont to do in winning time, Reid was there to land a counterstrike. He responded in every possible way Saturday, including to a third-quarter message from teammate Rudy Gobert.

“He was getting frustrated in the first half. I think in the third quarter I came to him and said ‘(Forget) what’s happening, (forget) what happened if you miss a shot, if you get fouled or anything … just free your mind and just be you and just embrace the moment, enjoy the moment, and I promise you you gonna make some plays,’” Gobert said, with a few more profanities laced into the actual message. “And he did.”

Outside of a brief scoring burst in Game 1 of the first-round series against Phoenix, Saturday marked Reid’s first real impact performance of the postseason. He was the first to note, on multiple occasions, that he didn’t do much against the Suns. But that didn’t deter his confidence.

“Every series is different. I think more so that might’ve been a guard series, just how they played. This series could be all-around personnel series,” Reid said. “So just staying with it, just staying solid. I feel like my presence wasn’t felt in that Phoenix series. I feel like I have to do more.”

He did plenty on Saturday. Anthony Edwards noted it may have been Reid’s defensive efforts against Nuggets star center Nikola Jokic that got the Wolves big man going in Game 1. It was as if the physical aggression revived the mental toughness.

“He stayed patient. There’s a lot of growth in Naz, man. He didn’t check out of the game. He wasn’t worried about his makes or misses, he just kept playing,” Edwards said. “He started fronting (Jokic) and we got some steals and he was able to get out, get some put-backs and play off the catch. He played within the flow tonight. He didn’t let nothing bother him as far as the game not going his way, and, eventually, it’ll come to you, man, if you’re patient. And he did that, man. He came up big. He was a big reason we won tonight.”

The Sixth Man of the Year has been one of the Timberwolves’ greatest player development stories in franchise history. Every year, he makes massive leaps in his game as he continues to raise his ceiling and demand a larger work load.

But, as far as playoff basketball goes, there may be no more necessary trait than the ability to push through struggles and continue to compete. Reid wasn’t able to do that two years ago, when he struggled mightily and played sparingly in Minnesota’s first-round-series loss to Memphis.

But, as is the case with most things with Reid, he has experienced a lot of improvement in that area over the past two years. And it showed itself Saturday.

“I just never gave up. I just fight, fight. Kind of how I got in the (situation) where I am now,” Reid said. “Being undrafted kind of got me that edge that I have now. I definitely just say fight, fight, fight.”

And now he’s the type of warrior Minnesota can trust in any battle.

“Naz has been able to be in any kind of situation,” Gobert said. “I think he’s really grown in being that type of player that’s gonna win us a lot of games.”

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When Eric Ramsay fulfilled his post-match media obligations in a Zoom session from Charlotte two weeks ago, the Loons head coach shut the laptop on still-waiting reporters back in Minnesota.

What? An MNUFC player was set to speak next.

Ramsay didn’t exactly slam it shut; he had no reason to be upset. His squad had just produced a comprehensive 3-0 road win against a team that hadn’t lost at home in nearly a calendar year.

It was nothing more than an accident, and over the next fortnight, it became a running joke — from when the team returned from North Carolina to before they left for Georgia on Friday and again after the Loons beat Atlanta United 2-1 on Saturday.

“Laptop is staying open,” Ramsay said in his parting words. “Don’t even worry.”

The even-keeled Ramsay was in a good mood after the Loons produced yet another road win. His team has an MLS-best four road victories; it has stacked 20 total points through 10 games; and it sits in first place in the Western Conference in points per game (2.0). Only Lionel Messi and Inter Miami in the Eastern Conference are averaging 2.0 points per game.

Ramsay inherited a team in mid-March that had seven points through its opening three games, and he’s built on it in his next seven matches.

Ramsay has instilled a strong defensive identity predicated on a compact shape that sets a high line. That set-up included a switch from two to three center backs in the last three games and they have allowed only two total goals in that three game winning streak.

Ramsay’s Loons are willing, especially on the road, to let the other team have the ball outside of its defensive third for the majority of the game. When the Loons have less than 50 percent possession, they are undefeated (6-0-1). When Minnesota has the majority of the ball, they are winless (0-2-1).

On the road, MNUFC will look to pounce on opportunities when they win the ball back. The Loons’ two goals Saturday came in this fashion. Kervin Arriaga scoring on a corner kick and Tani Oluwaseyi capitalizing on a counter attack.

Arriaga’s header was the Loons’ third goal from a set piece in the last three games.

“We obviously do a solid amount of work around those situations,” Ramsay said. “There’s a reasonable level of detail to each of the goals we scored but I will say, you can’t look past a very good delivery and a real intent to score. We’ve got that across a couple of players in both of those components in those situations.

“We will be a team, I’m sure, that will create a lot of chaos in those situations and take it when you come to places like (Atlanta), when you know you are going to be on the back foot in terms of volume in possession that you have. You need to make sure in those moments you can really make it count and we have done. That’s a big part of (Saturday’s) win.”

One tactic the Loons used Saturday was having goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair boot the ball long. It fed into MNUFC having a season-low 32 percent possession.

“We didn’t want to give anything cheap away to the opposition here,” Ramsay said. “They are a good pressing team. They are very well organized, very discipled. They’ve got a really good change of pace and rhythm when they press. We wanted to make sure that we — certainly in the opening stages — took that element of the game away from them. Largely it worked.”

Ramsay said he was “really disappointed” with Atlanta’s goal, which came from Minnesota playing it long and not dealing with the ball after it drops and space is created.

A flick-on header from Giorgos Giakoumakis went to Daniel Rios, who was running in on goal. As Rios gained possession, he outraced Micky Tapias and laid it off to Saba Lobzhanidze, who had a few paces on Devin Padelford, and scored in the 82nd minute.

Atlanta was back in the game at 2-1, but Minnesota didn’t wilt and allow the late equalizer. Ramsay chalked it up to organization, disciple and “a phenomenal mentality” from the players.

Right back D.J. Taylor credited team chemistry and defensive shape for the success they have had on the road this season.

“The togetherness of what we are doing and everyone understanding our roles,” Taylor said. “Everyone knows, OK, we have to be aggressive and win these battles. Being able to play this way with a five back is really nice because we can be a lot more aggressive in defending and winning the ball higher up the pitch.

“So, I think as long as we are all committed and we keep on that schedule and keep going. That’s been helping us have huge success. It’s just everyone helping the guy beside them and everyone understanding what they need to do in certain situations.”

When Taylor was done speaking on Zoom, the laptop remained open. He left the frame to go enjoy a post-match meal of Chic-fil-A before flying back to Minnesota with another three points.

Edward Lotterman

Sometimes bad events have positive side effects.

Here’s hoping that proves true for customers of UnitedHealth Group, where a ransomware hack at a subsidiary compromised health care data of perhaps a third of all Americans. Its CEO, Andrew Witty, underwent blistering attacks last week while giving testimony to Congress.

That got people’s attention. So maybe elected officials from both parties would be more open to taking action than in the past, not just on data security, but on abusive monopoly power in health care as a whole.

That is good. UnitedHealth, a Minnetonka-based health insurer that is expanding into evermore levels of care, is far too large and powerful. It should be broken up, as should be its major competitors.

Economists know, and once thought important, that large businesses with market dominance can abuse consumers. Moreover, they waste resources. When competition is stifled, fewer human needs are met with a given amount of resources.

In general, monopoly power of any significant degree disrupts market functioning and harms people. Governments can act, and many have, to correct this with overall success, even though this has become a near-dead issue in our nation of late.

Simple questions illustrate the scope and complexity of the problem: What business is UnitedHealth actually in? Does it provide health services to people or just administer them? Is Kaiser Permanente, the Oakland Calif.-based eight-state membership-model managed care provider its competitor? Or is it CVS drugstores and its Aetna insurance arm? Or McKesson, a one-time rug manufacturer now selling management systems.

These are complicated questions. And understanding all that is involved in complex monopoly issues requires a review of basic microeconomics. So here goes.

Seventy years ago, UC Berkeley economist Joe Bain argued that “structure, conduct and performance,” were key issues in examining market power.

“Structure” means the number of companies providing a good or service to a given market. Is there only one, as in the days when Western Union or AT&T dominated telegraphy and telephony? Or are there millions, as for shoveling snow from sidewalks or growing corn? The first extreme is “monopoly;” its polar opposite is “perfect competition.”

Monopoly is simple — only one producer or seller. Perfect competition is more complicated — several conditions must be true, including no barriers to getting in or out of the business and no firm being large enough to move prices.

Most markets fall in between these two extremes.

Once a company has a distinguishable brand, Cub Foods, Byerlys or Aldi, Subway or Jimmy Johns, it operates in “monopolistic competition.” Brand identity and other factors give each a degree of pricing power, though seldom much.

Oligopoly is different — instead of just one big dominant business, there are just a handful. Automakers, steel makers, airlines and appliance makers operate in oligopolistic markets — each competitor has a distinct brand with distinct customer loyalties and pricing power, and the barriers to entry are great. But they still compete. The same is true for UnitedHealth, Kaiser Permanente, CVS, HealthPartners and other health care insurer/providers.

However in health care these cut several ways. Pharmacy retailing is different from hospital operation is different from administering Tricare, the federal military health program or Medicare Advantage plans. Market relationships between the varied services and their providers, and their contract customers, employee benefit plans for example, skew options greatly.

So how do oligopolies come about? And what routes lead to market power?

One is “vertical integration,” as in the steel industry when a company owns not only the steel mill, but also the iron and coal mines, limestone quarries, steamships, barbed wire factories and retail warehouses. The taconite mine in Mountain Iron, Minn., owned by U.S. Steel was one end of a vertical chain, the humongous USS warehouse standing for decades at University Avenue and MN 280 was the other.

Such full-chain companies did not start that way. At some point a well-managed and capitalized firm bought up suppliers and customers.

“Horizontal integration” is another possible structure. One auto dealer buys up other dealers in their area, then branches to adjoining states. One independent hospital merges with another. Five single-practice ENTs form a clinic.

At times, both horizontal and vertical mergers occur. A century ago, the state of South Dakota built its own Portland cement plant to combat price abuses by private cement companies. Twenty years ago a Mexican-owned multinational cement producer bought it and promptly started buying up small family-owned ready-mixed concrete plants and precast concrete products factories, methodically working its way east along I-90. The federal government and that of South Dakota looked the other way. A Portland cement manufacturer buying up one concrete plant is vertical integration — it then reaching out to buy others is horizontal acquisition.

“Conglomerate” mergers are a third form in which seemingly unrelated businesses are brought into one corporation. A fad of the 1960s, conglomerates included Gulf & Western, an auto bumper manufacturer that eventually owned Paramount Pictures, Schrafft’s candies, Sega video games and a cement plant. Auto components maker Tenneco was a gas pipeline operator that acquired a nuclear aircraft carrier builder and J.I. Case farm equipment.

Supposedly there was “synergy” in conglomeration so that the whole would be more than the sum of highly unrelated parts. That proved not true. Yet large multipronged health corporations such as UnitedHealth incorporate some of their characteristics.

Health sector behemoths coalesced both horizontally and vertically. Doctor’s practices became clinics that became multi-clinic regional practices. Urban hospitals merged and then were acquired by statewide or multistate chains. Competing insurers, often originally established by providers, merged and then bought up hospitals and clinics. They took on administering federal activities like Medicare Advantage plans or Tricare. They bought pharmacies and “pharmacy benefit managers” and drug manufacturers.

This takes us from Bain’s understanding of “structure” to that of “conduct.” What business practices do such huge entities follow? Search for “largest health companies.” Then search them one by one. You will get lists of alleged sins, court decisions and consent decrees. Do understand, however, that contentious issues in health have always existed.

What about “performance?” Consumers and politicians focus on abuses in pricing or poor service by firms with market power and nothing to lose. Economists also look for waste in use of resources when there is little competition, poor quality control and lack of innovation.

Our country has amazing medical technologies and treatments, but mediocre health outcomes compared to other industrialized nations. We spend over 16% of the value of total output on health care, a third higher fraction than the next 10 highest nations. This 4%-of-GDP excess effectively is a tax on our economy. That is twice as big as the corporate income tax. It includes money transferred to health care business owners and money simply flushed down drains.

If we had never let our health care sector become so dominated by such large entities, we would be better off. But we did. It is much harder to break up established monopolies and oligopolies than to prevent their forming. First and foremost, there has to be political will.

Yet politicians in our great-grandparents’ generation did break up Standard Oil, International Harvester and sundry combinations of railroads. Bill Clinton’s Justice Department was within weeks of splitting Microsoft in two when the incoming George W. Bush administration ended the effort. The feds are now looking at Google in an ongoing antitrust effort targeting market dominance of internet search.

Reform and restructuring are daunting. Our politics are an ineffective mess. However, we have a history of success with bi-partisan commissions of experts and retired politicians, such as the 1983 Greenspan Commission to overhaul Social Security or the 9/11 Commission of five Republicans and five Democrats. How about we set up a similar commission for health care, including antitrust experts, and give it ample staff and budget. Then hope that gives responsible people in the two parties enough cover to get something done.

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St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

April 14, 2023, was a day that changed Khadar Greer’s life.

Greer’s cousin, who he thought of as his big brother, lost his life in a shooting.

Greer, now 21, asked himself, “What do I want to do next?” And he decided: “Make my community proud” by continuing to spread a message of violence prevention.

Weeks earlier, in March 2023, Greer hosted the Stop the Violence Basketball Event he created in St. Paul. He thought it would be a one-time gathering, but the homicide of his cousin led Greer to decide it should be an annual event. The next gathering will be Saturday, May 11, in St. Paul.

Greer, a lifelong St. Paul resident, is being noticed by community leaders as a young person making a difference.

He’s “reminding us of the importance of togetherness and wanting to give our babies an opportunity and a sense of hope. There’s a lot of us that want to see our young folks prosper and have that type of energy,” said Johnny Allen Jr., executive director of the JK Movement, the nonprofit that operates and manages the Jimmy Lee Recreation Center at the Oxford Community Center.

Now in college and working with kids

Greer grew up in the Rondo neighborhood, the youngest of Rose George-Greer and Paul Greer’s two children. He saw his parents in community-oriented careers: George-Greer is in her 31st year at the St. Paul Public Schools and works with special-education students. Paul Greer formerly owned a barber shop and now works in the mental health field with young people in juvenile detention.

Basketball is Khadar (pronounced “kah-DAR”) Greer’s favorite sport. He started playing when he was 5 and became a point guard, playing junior varsity at Como Park Senior High School and varsity at Highland Park Senior High School.

Greer graduated in 2021 and he’s in college now for graphic design. He hopes to find a career that will allow him to continue bringing the community together for events.

He works for St. Paul Public Schools’ Discovery Club, at the after-school program for elementary students.

“He tells me: Dad, I see what you mean when you say, ‘These are my kids,’” Paul Greer said of his son also connecting to kids at his work. “I say: Now you see why I care so much about these kids.”

Another tragedy led to first community basketball event

Greer organized his first community basketball event last year after another tragedy.

His friend Johntae Hudson, a 19-year-old St. Paul resident, was tackled at the Mall of America and fatally shot at point-blank range just before Christmas in 2022. Two teens were charged with murder and one has pleaded guilty.

“When Khadar first lost his friend at the mall, the first thing he said was, ‘I have to do something to bring this community together,’” George-Greer said. “It wasn’t a second thought.”

Greer got to work and organized the Stop the Violence Basketball Event last March at Jimmy Lee Rec Center. Hundreds of people attended, Allen said.

Jeff Jackson (Courtesy of Jasmine Jackson)

His cousin in Chicago, Jeff Jackson, told him afterward that he should keep it going, though Greer was initially undecided. But when Jackson was killed on April 14, 2023, Greer decided he should continue the event for the 32-year-old, who he said was a great basketball player.

Jackson was one of the people who Greer was closest with and someone he talked to daily.

“He was that person in my ear that always kept me calm whenever I felt down about something … he was always that person I could go to for advice,” Greer said.

Basketball, entertainment, fun

For Saturday’s free event, Greer has arranged for a magic show, dancers, vendors who will sell food, a dunking contest, three-point contest and more.

The first basketball game of the day will be for teenagers, which Greer said will allow them to showcase their skills for middle school and high school coaches. The second will be a community game for adults. The last game will be a face-off between elementary school-age kids and St. Paul police officers.

“At the end of the day, a lot of kids don’t really have a lot of outlets and I just want to be that outlet for them,” Greer said. “It’s really just giving the community a chance to have fun,” Greer said.

There will be tables set up with information about community resources, including financial literacy and leadership programming for youth and families.

“Those resources are aimed at the root causes” of violence, said Rashad Turner, the event’s emcee, who will coach one of the basketball games and is also president of Minnesota Parent Union.

Andrew Tyler, Greer’s uncle, said he’d like to see corporate sponsors supporting the event and panel discussions about overcoming systemic racism and poverty to get to underlying causes of violence. He’s proud of his nephew’s work and understands that Greer is from a new generation that grew up when the country had its first Black president.

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“Khadar’s a very strong Black man, coming from a generation of survivors in America,” Tyler said. “He’s here to make a difference.”

There will also be therapists at the event with a message of community healing: “It’s OK to talk to people and not keep everything bottled up,” George-Greer said.

George-Greer lost her own mother to violence. Magdaline George was killed on George-Greer’s 16th birthday in St. Paul in 1990. George-Greer found her mother’s body in a closet of their apartment the following day. Her homicide remains unsolved.

Though George-Greer found a support group for families of homicide victims, she sees support for people affected by trauma as more widespread now.

Community building

Khadar Greer, left, and Jamir White, 13, at Jimmy Lee Recreation Center with flyers they created for Greer’s second-annual “Stop the Violence Basketball Event.” (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Basketball is a way to get people together, and the violence-prevention piece comes from building connections, Greer said.

“I think being active with your community is one of the best things to build something,” he added. “I’m trying to build a bond as a community.”

Allen and Turner also grew up in the Rondo neighborhood, and they remember it as a village of people looking out for each other. “Everyone knew everyone. And everyone knew everyone’s family,” Allen said.

There was a liquor store and bar near Allen’s home and if anyone saw him around those places when he was an adolescent, they asked, “What are you doing over here?”

“It’s that type of community sense and relationship that we’re trying to bring back,” Allen said.

While Turner and Allen have been doing that work from their organizations, they said they love seeing the next generation take up the cause and hope people are inspired by Greer to also do so.

“Tragic situations led to his passion, but he’s using that as fuel to show positive outcomes and positive opportunities for our young folks,” Allen said. Greer’s event planning and skills in networking also show young people that “whatever you set your mind to, you can achieve it,” Allen added.

For Greer’s parents, they always imagined big things for him.

When George-Greer was pregnant, Paul Greer felt his unborn son kick and he said, “That was so powerful.” When he was looking in a baby-name book for ideas, he saw, “Khadar,” meaning powerful.

“Fast forward, here’s Khadar trying to move things forward, make a movement, make growth and try to bring a community together at 21 years old,” Paul Greer said.

Stop the Violence Basketball Event

When: 11:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, May 11. Brodini the Magician will perform first, before the games.
Where: Jimmy Lee Rec Center, 270 N. Lexington Pkwy., St. Paul.
Sign up: People who want to play in a game should fill out the contact form by Monday on Khadar Greer’s website, itsyoboykhadar.com, and indicate what game they want to play in. If space is available, signups may be available on site.
Cost: There is no charge to attend the event, which Greer funds through donations and his own paychecks. The nonprofit JK Movement accepts donations on Greer’s behalf for the event at thejkm.org/donate (note the basketball event in the “Public Message of Support” part for online contributions).

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