"The Kid" grows up: leading his best Minnesota team yet, Kevin Garnett has expanded his game and is pushing the Timberwolves to dizzying heights - Interview: Kevin Garnett - basketball player - Cover Story - Interview

Basketball Digest, March, 2002 by Brett Ballantini

IT'S EASY TO OVERLOOK, PERHAPS, but Kevin Garnett is every bit the revolutionary force in today's NBA that Michael Jordan ever was. And if he's not quite there yet, he soon will be.

How does a 25-year-old, in his seventh NBA season with the Minnesota Timberwolves, have such an impact? Do the math: A 25-year-old who's attained veteran status ... hey, wait, yeah, Garnett jumped to the NBA right out of high school. Just like all those other guys in last year's draft, right?

Wrong. True, Garnett is a member of the preps-to-pros club. But he's not only a member--he kick-started the club back into existence.

Back in 1995, when Garnett decided to jump straight to the league from his NBA prep school, Chicago's Farragut Academy, no player had made an attempt to skip college. A move we take for granted, anticipate, even expect little more than five years later was actually a revolutionary event in NBA history. Unlike the first miniwave of preps-to-pros in the 1970s (Moses Malone with the ABA's Utah Stars and NBA draftees Darryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby), the current movement has taken on a life of its own. Incredible talents, from Magic Johnson to Isiah Thomas to Michael Jordan, may have only paid lip service to college, but they did show up on campus. It took a player with Garnett's talent, courage, and maturity to take the plunge.

The revolution itself may have an ugly ending. While there's nothing wrong with any player stretching his limits and challenging himself at the highest level, for every Garnett there are several more "Kid" wannabes who never grow up. With every prep who attempts the leap, a dozen agents and hangers-on surface to entice players who, increasingly, aren't ready.

Garnett's leap, in fact, has necessitated the creation of an entire league--the NBA's new National Developmental Basketball League, a Southeast-based minor league that caps players' ages at 25 but otherwise emulates baseball's minor league system.

Garnett, however, was the exception to the rule right from the start. His rookie campaign in 1995-96 yielded 10.4 ppg on 49.1% shooting and 6.3 rpg in less than 30 minutes per tilt.

It's been the past two seasons that Garnett has truly shot into the stratosphere: All-NBA First Team in 1999-2000 and Second Team last year, NBA All-Defensive First Team both seasons, and notching benchmark figures of 22 ppg and 11 rpg in both seasons. In fact, Garnett's averages of 22.9 ppg, 11.8 rpg, and 5.0 apg in 1999-2000 and then 22.0 ppg, 11.4 rpg, and 5.0 apg made him only the seventh player in professional basketball history--along with such luminaries as Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Julius Erring, and Elgin Baylor--with multiple 20/10/5 seasons.

Garnett isn't just line after line of impressive numbers, however. He's always been clear about what he wants, whether as a brash high-schooler recognizing he was ready to make a jump that even his childhood heroes did not, squeezing his seven-foot frame into a customized "6'12"" to keep from being pinned down as only a post player, or stepping up among the Timberwolves as their emotional, physical, and verbal leader.

He also provides comic relief, something evident before a game at Chicago's United Center, where Garnett--a man with no alma mater--taunted locker neighbor and Maryland grad Joe Smith in the aftermath of the Terrapins' big loss to Oklahoma: "Nobody pays much attention to Maryland. You know they're around. You've heard of them, but ..."

BASKETBALL DIGEST caught up with The Kid at the scene of his yearly return to his "second home," Chicago, where his Timberwolves would bust up the Bulls, 95-74, in what would up being Tim Floyd's final game coaching for Chicago. Garnett left town with a near-triple of 14 points, 11 rebounds, and nine assists and a series-of scuffles with preps-to-pros progeny Tyson Chandler.

BASKETBALL DIGEST: Most superstars need to score 25 ppg, but you don't seem to care much about that.

KEVIN GARNETT: I don't. We have a team that's very organized around a certain style of play, not whether one guy takes 50 shots or another guy has to average a certain amount. It's totally a non-ego team, and I make sure that everybody's ego is in check, including my own. You have to start with that attitude at the top and work your way down to the bottom.

For example, when guys are chasing shots, we have someone come up to them and remind them to take their shots through the offense. As long as everyone is focused on our goal of winning, and everybody's being aggressive at the same time, we don't complain.

BD: When the Timberwolves are on, they're a beautiful team to watch. Do you think the new rules have affected how well the team is playing, on both sides of the ball?

KG: We know what to execute, and to do some of the things we want to do we have to have good spacing. Sometimes we get in a bind, and I've tried to talk to my teammates about how important it is for us to have good spacing. When we beat teams, we're beating teams with our spacing, back picks ... the small things.