A Chicago Writer Weighs in on KG

Chicago Sun Times
Rick Telander

The mind drifts back to that day at Farragut Academy in the spring of 1995 when 18-year-old Kevin Garnett talked to Bill ''Poodle'' Willoughby on the phone and shortly thereafter decided to enter the NBA draft.

Willoughby, from New Jersey, was one of the first players to skip college entirely and go straight from high school to the NBA.

He hadn't had a spectacular career, but Willoughby did not blame the NBA for the fact his advisers had ended up with a lot of his money or that he was at that moment a freshman in college, at 37.

He told Garnett to watch out for himself, if he did turn pro.

And Garnett has done just that.

The Celtics have flourished so much since acquiring Garnett from the Minnesota Timberwolves last summer that it's understood by all in this packed house that they certainly will prevail over the Bulls (29-45). The Celtics have the best record in the league, and soon they will be 4-0 against the Bulls.

They are simply much, much better than the Bulls, and much, much better than last year.

And on both accounts, most of it is due to Garnett.

Indeed, how many players anywhere could have done what Garnett just did? Sprinting like a guard, leaping like a high jumper, moving in mid-air like a ballerina, the ever-hustling Garnett makes almost anything possible.

Then-Pistons coach Doug Collins said in 1995: ''He's a genetic freak. All the great ones are.''

But a number of physical freaks have been mental nutcases, and their pro careers have flamed out like sparklers dunked in the ocean.

Even better than they thought

That pass from Allen was badly thrown, a good 30 inches above the rim, but Garnett, perhaps as agile a tall man as ever has lived, soared into the United Center air and tipped in the basket.

Doom and disaster were widely predicted for teenaged Garnett when, both ears covered with Band-Aids to protect fresh earring holes, he decided to go from the Chicago Public League to the league of rich men.

The June 26, 1995, Sports Illustrated ran a cautionary story on the youth: ''Oh, Garnett comes with an asterisk, as even the most breathless NBA executive will acknowledge. Drafting a teenager who is obviously talented but not physically or emotionally mature is a charged issue for the NBA. ... There are concerns about Garnett's maturity, his social skills, his sense of responsibility, his friends and his diet. And that's not to mention the question of how long he will take to develop physically (only 220 pounds are slung along those 83 inches) and whether he'll fold like a nervous poker player the first time Karl Malone hips him into a basket stanchion.''

''He's just a classy human being,'' Celtics coach Doc Rivers says before the game. ''He's made a lot of good decisions in his life.''

Up from South Carolina, making choices largely on his own, Garnett did indeed beat the odds.

TALENT, INTENSITY, CHARACTER

Last month he was named the NBA player of the week while leading the Celtics to a defiant Western Conference sweep of the Spurs, Rockets and Mavericks.

''I take a lot of pride in my IQ in basketball,'' Garnett, whose halfhearted high school-era SAT and ACT scores were poor, said earlier this season. ''It's something I've developed.''

''I knew about his talent and intensity,'' Rivers says. ''I didn't know about his character.''

Now, it seems, the world does.

An 11-time All-Star, Garnett this season had the most global votes -- almost 2.4 million -- of any player in the game.

Rivers won't declare which player should be MVP of the league, but he says: ''[Garnett] deserves a lot. I'm going to stop there.''

''I'm not sure,'' Garnett said back then of turning pro. ''But the one thing that bothers me is everybody thinking I just, you know, got into this without thinking it over. I thought about it a lot, and I think I'm ready.''

The Celtics didn't need to win this game, but they did anyway, 106-92.

Garnett had a workmanlike 20 points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots.

Ho-hum.