Greg Monroe becomes 541st player in the NBA this season

Minnesota Timberwolves power forward Greg Monroe of New Orleans, Louisiana helped make NBA history on Monday. Monroe became the 541st player to play a NBA game in 2021-22. That is the most number of players to have played in one single NBA season in the history of the league. What is so staggering about this statistic is that we are not even at the 2022 portion of the 2021-22 calendar year, and this dubious record has already been broken!

So, what is the reason? The answer is simple. Coronavirus. The pandemic is spreading through North America at the moment like wildfire, yet the NFL and NBA continue to march on. If a player comes down with the disease, somebody is either signed or acquired, and used immediately as a replacement.

It should be noted that there have been 54,399,700 cases of coronavirus and 843,249 deaths in the United States alone. The death rate has dropped significantly over time, but there are still 12,182,717 active cases, and 1020 new deaths in the United States over the last 24 hours. The pandemic has hit the Timberwolves community hard. The mother and uncle of Timberwolves’ star player Karl-Anthony Towns died of the disease. 

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Meanwhile, in Monroe’s first game with the Timberwolves on Monday, a 108-103 Minnesota win over the Boston Celtics, Monroe had 11 points, nine rebounds, and six assists. Monroe was one of two Timberwolves players not in the Minnesota starting five who were exceptional. Jaylen Nowell had a game-high 29 points. Then on Tuesday, Monroe had seven points in a 96-88 Minnesota loss to the New York Knicks.

The Timberwolves are the seventh team Monroe has played for in his career. He has also played for the Detroit Pistons, Milwaukee Bucks, Phoenix Suns, Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, and Philadelphia 76ers.

Monroe had not played in the NBA since 2018-19, when he shared his time with the Raptors, Celtics, and 76ers. Over the last two seasons, Monroe has played professionally in Europe–in 2019-20 in Germany, with Bayern Munich, and in 2020-21 in Russia, with Khimki Moscow.

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