Pulling a Clemens

I was just talking with my friend, the Timberwolves' fan, and his response to my rantings about KG's knee was "the Celtics are pulling a Clemens." No, he didn't mean that Kevin Garnett is swallowing elephant sized doses of steroids to extend his playing career and show ridiculous levels of improvement for an aging veteran. Instead, what he meant was that the Celtics won't play KG much if at all until the second half of the season, when they really need him.

Interesting. Very interesting. He also predicted 55 wins even if KG never takes the floor once. Even more interesting. That's an awful lot of wins without KG. But that tells you what kind of team we have, and how neutral observers see us. In any event, back to KG's knee.

I've been talking a lot about having Kevin Garnett come off the bench, mostly because it would reduce his minutes, extend his career, and thus extend our championship window. I also thought the Ticket might rival Walton's season for the ages off the bench in 1985-86. But it casts a different light on the situation if KG is coming off the bench because his knee won't let him play a starter's minutes. Then instead of waiting for him to come in and kick ass when he enters a game, we'd be waiting for him to come in and break down.

I know some of you are worried about me having an aneurysm. But I lived through the end of Bill Walton's career, and that was painful enough. My friend also observed that despite his 55-win prediction, the C's need Garnett healthy to better distribute "the load" among the team's superstars. We don't want 34-year-old Ray Allen and 35-year-old Rasheed Wallace wearing down prematurely. On a positive note, my friend is predicting a "Jason Kidd in his prime" kind of year from Rajon Rondo.