Garnett is Surrounded . . . Finally

11/16/2007


We all knew he was good. The numerous accolades; multiple All-NBA selections, multiple All-Defense selections, Most Valuable Player, gold-medal-winning Olympian. There was a reason Celtics fans went into circuit overload when the team announced the acquisition of Kevin Garnett.

But I have to say, after seven games, I didn't think he was this good. I mean, who ever watched Minnesota the past three years? The Timberwolves were a mess. Yes, they were in a tough conference, but I had to wonder why the team couldn't even make the playoffs with one of the game's elite landscape changers. Memphis made it, for goodness sake.

Of course, that was boneheaded thinking.

"One of my pet peeves," says Danny Ainge, "is that when a team doesn't do well and has a great player, that it's always the great player's fault. Usually, it's the other players that are playing with that great player. We, as management, we wonder, too. Are those players good enough to carry a team? I understand there are questions about all players when they don't win. You always question the general manager, coach, the star player first, typically. But it's almost always the other players around those star players."

If you want to take that as Danny needling his good buddy, Kevin McHale, feel free. The record backs up Danny. The one year McHale put some quality veterans around Garnett, and the quality veterans stayed healthy, the Timberwolves won 58 games, had the best record in the brutally tough Western Conference, and made it to the 2004 conference finals. The next year, Sam Cassell missed 23 games and the team didn't even make the playoffs. The year after that, Cassell and Latrell Sprewell were gone, leaving Garnett holding the proverbial bag. He still put up big numbers, but on bad teams, and, well, it made you wonder.

What was Garnett thinking? What led to what I (and some others) felt was his misplaced loyalty to Minnesota? Let's face it, had Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor forked over the money to extend his contract, Garnett would still be there. He would still be working his tail off every day, still exhorting his teammates, still focusing like a scientist on the verge of a major discovery, still receiving acclaim - and his team would still stink.

He would go down as not only one of the greats, a certain Hall of Famer, but also as a player who, save for that one year, had to do it alone. You wonder how many titles Larry Bird would have won without McHale and Robert Parish. (Answer: none.) Or how many Michael Jordan would have won without Scottie Pippen. (Answer: none.) That was Garnett in Minnesota, and why he didn't try to be more forceful in getting to a better place will always be, as Yul Brynner would say, a puzzlement.

Others, including Ainge, see it as something different.

"I think he's a good, loyal guy and he really didn't know anything else, any other NBA cities, or what else was out there. I think he did feel loyalty to the Minnesota Timberwolves," Ainge said.

"I just don't believe in running when the situation is bad," Garnett said. "When things are bad, the easiest thing is to go duck your head in a hole somewhere [and] get lost. That's easy. I was just trying like hell to make the situation better. That was my modest effort toward the down times that whole [time] I was in Minnesota. A situation like that makes me appreciate even a lot more the current situation I'm in now. And I'm embracing and enjoying it."

He now has better players around him in Ray Allen and Paul Pierce than he ever had in Minnesota. And he's in a weaker conference than he was when Cassell and Sprewell rode shotgun in 2003-04. His inherent unselfishness, which sometimes was construed as a flaw (when he wouldn't take the big shot at the end of a game), is even more lethal now, because he has guys who will take the last shot. He can - and will - set them up.

It is that trait that always endeared Garnett to USA Basketball. He was a short-termer for Uncle Sam, participating in the 1999 qualifier in San Juan and then partnering with Allen (and others) to win the gold a year later in Sydney. But he is always on USA Basketball's short list, as evidenced by the organization's recent (but unsuccessful) attempt to get him to play next summer in Beijing.

"When we would get together to go over players, his name was always at the top of everyone's list," said former Golden State general manager Garry St. Jean, who was on the USA Basketball selection committee. "Him and [Tim] Duncan. Shaq [O'Neal], too, except that we all figured he'd be out being a sheriff somewhere and wouldn't come. But Garnett is an interesting guy.

"Someone has educated him as to the amount of rest he needs in the summer because of all the energy he brings to the floor, every day."

And it's contagious. On offense, you see Pierce making behind-the-back passes. On defense, well, the Celtics are actually playing it now and playing it well. I wrote last week that the reasons were (a) Garnett, (b) James Posey, (c) Tom Thibodeau, and (d) because it couldn't get any worse. I was wrong, as more than a few e-mailers noted. The reasons are (a) Garnett, (b) Garnett, (c) Garnett, and (d) Garnett. Coaching gets you only so far. The players have to buy into it and Garnett is the ultimate salesman.

I only hope we get to see this Garnett for the full five years he's contracted to be here. I worry about his minutes, although he's never been seriously hurt. I worry that his ultra-intensity will be hard to sustain. But, let's face it, right now is there a better player in the league? Even neater, is there a better player more into what he's doing?

"I knew he was a great player," Doc Rivers said. "I had heard he was a great guy to coach. He's exceeded that. Every coach should have a chance to coach a Garnett."

P.S. Thanks, Kevin.