We all saw Kevin Garnett make Glen “Big Baby” Davis on TV and there are some stories that built his legend around the league as being one of the most competitive player to ever play the game. Garnett, who is at the end of his NBA career, is responsible to mentor the number 1 pick Karl-Anthony Towns and the young T-Wolves group as a whole. He was brought in by Flip Saunders for that specific task but is it a good idea based on KG’s track record interacting with his teammates?
Garnett doesn’t take time off and he has high expectations for his teammates as well so if there should be no issues as long as long they buy into his program. Chauncey Billups, who was with him in Minnesota from 2000-2002, has an interesting story when Wally Szczerbiak stood his ground after KG yelled at him for not playing defense, a fight in the training room followed.
Role players were not the only ones who caught Garnett’s antics. During his Boston years, he didn’t hesitate calling out Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo when he saw they were not at a level they were supposed to be playing. Their coach, Doc Rivers, saw it as a positive.
“He’d tell Rondo, ‘Get the f— out! You’re not playing defense!'” Rivers says. “He told him the truth. Rondo needed more of that.”
Boston was a contender for every season Garnett was there and he set the tone for the entire roster, Avery Bradley was a rookie when he got there, describes how the atmosphere was.
“When Kevin came through those doors on game day, he was angry,” says Celtics guard Avery Bradley, who played with Garnett for three seasons. “We couldn’t laugh, talk, listen to music. We’d all hide in the training room or the bathroom — wherever KG wasn’t.”
Doc Rivers himself experienced having to deal with his antics, he suggested KG to sit a practice to save some energy for the game and Garnett took it as a weakness so while on the sidelines he imitated Leon Powe, his replacement in that session. It was such a distraction that Doc Rivers cancelled the practice.
Those examples can be used to praise Garnett’s leadership but there were other episodes during his career that raised a flag as him being a leader. One of them were bullying a former Celtics first round pick, Patrick O’Bryant, that he was traded to the Raptors and only lasted 24 more games in the NBA. There is also the story of him tying up Nets teammate Tyshawn Taylor with a rope and throwing him in the shower.
Luckily for the T-Wolves, they heard stories about KG so they know what to expect. Garnett knows his role now so he probably toned it down a lot and quite frankly they don’t have the roster to make a run at the championship so it’s all about teaching. Hopefully one day, they can document more stories to make a 30 for 30 piece on Garnett.