Such is Kevin Garnett’s reputation that he threw a scare into his new Minnesota teammates before he ever arrived from Brooklyn.
In advance of Garnett’s arrival, the T-wolves sent out a warning to all of the 20-somethings on Flip Saunders’ team: Put your cellphones away on game night, or else they’ll be flushed down the toilet, courtesy of Mr. Big Ticket.
No, Garnett doesn’t mess around.
Garnett is back in the Twin Cities, where it all started for the Hall of Famer almost 20 years ago when he was just 19. He’ll be re-introduced Tuesday after an afternoon practice session. Last week, after some deliberation, he waived his no-trade clause and left the Nets for a chance to teach one of the youngest teams in the league how to be a professional and how to win.
In making the transition from a Nets team that is eight games under .500, but still is in position to make the playoffs because the East is so bad, Garnett is basically admitting what has been painfully evident. His best days are long over. In fact, Nets fans never got to see them after he arrived from Boston in July, 2013.
But for the Timberwolves, he’s seen as the perfect fit. Earlier this season he said he’d one day like to buy the team. But for now he’s going to be entrusted with getting president-coach Flip Saunders’ message across to his teammates, a few of whom were in diapers when Garnett started his NBA career.
"Certain people have the abilities and they are born leaders," Saunders told reporters out in Minneapolis the other day, speaking about Garnett. "I believe he's going to expect of those young players to follow through...to respect the game."
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In exchange for Garnett, Thaddeus Young went to the Nets in a coup for embattled Brooklyn GM Billy King. Given Garnett’s diminished impact as a player there wasn’t much of a market on trade deadline day for a 38-year old veteran averaging only 20 minutes a game, and carrying a $12 million pricetag.
Except for his original team, where he had once played for Saunders and had been the league MVP in 2004. Saunders always wanted the greatest player in franchise history to end his career where it all started.
Garnett’s departure marks the end of the Nets’ incredibly foolish get-rich-quick scheme to win a title. Back in the summer of 2013 they gave up the ranch -- most notably three future No. 1 picks -- to obtain Garnett and Paul Pierce. Owner Mikhail Prokhorov was all-in, spending an NBA-record $180 million in salaries and taxes to assemble what looked like a formidable starting five.
But after managing to win only five playoff games last spring and seeing their dream end in a second-round, five-game drubbing at the hands of the Miami Heat, they decided they were finished with the plan. So it turns out that they gave up a boatload of assets to go for the gold for only one year. The price was steep: They don’t have their own No. 1 draft pick until 2019.
At least with Young, 26, the Nets got younger and more athletic. This summer he can opt out of a contract that pays him $10 million next season, but the Nets figure he’ll stay. He had been obtained by the T-Wolves last summer for a No. 1 pick that had been previously obtained from the Miami Heat. The way Saunders views it, surrendering the future pick will be well worth it.
“K.G., I believe, will have more of an impact than what that pick would have delivered over the years,” he said.
Garnett joins a team that has only two players over the age of 30 and boasts some prime young talent, starting with 20-year old Andrew Wiggins, the favorite to win Rookie of the Year. At the start of the season there were only three teams with younger rosters -- Philly, Milwaukee and Utah.
Wiggins, of course, was drafted No. 1 overall last June by Cleveland and then traded to Minnesota for Kevin Love. The T-wolves believe that Wiggins will learn a lot with Garnett now running the locker room.
“Kevin loves basketball,” Kevin McHale, the former Timberwolves executive and current Rockets coach, told reporters before his Houston team defeated Minnesota on Monday night. “He’s competitive. He always has been. He has a wealth of knowledge. He has played a lot of big games, won a championship and he’s not afraid to talk. He’ll say a lot of things.”
And the word is out to his new teammates: He’ll slam-dunk your phone into the nearest toilet if he finds you messing around.
Longtime New York columnist Mitch Lawrence continues to write about pro basketball, as he’s done for the last 22 years. His columns for NBCNewYork.com on the Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and the NBA, along with other major sports, will appear twice weekly. Follow him on Twitter @Mitch _ Lawrence.
