LAS VEGAS — Gersson Rosas will never forget his father’s “mandate.”
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ new president of basketball operations was still young, acclimating to life in Texas, when he received the talk that set the framework for his future. His parents, Leonardo, an agricultural entrepreneur, and Gloria, a public relations professional, had left stable jobs and their extended families in Colombia to immigrate to the United States in search of a safer environment and better schools for their growing family.
Leonardo bluntly told Gersson, who was 3 when the family relocated from Bogota to Houston in the early 1980s, that he bore dual responsibilities as the eldest of four boys and as the beneficiary of the family’s sacrifices.