Our Kyle Ratke (@Kyle_Ratke) was able to chat with ESPN senior writer Jackie MacMullan about the recent piece she wrote on Kevin Garnett for ESPN The Magazine. You can read the article online here. MacMullan covered Garnett during his years as a member of the Boston Celtics.
KR: To start, can you just describe what your storyline for this piece is and how you came up with the idea?
JM: Well, we were talking in preseason about different storylines. Obviously Karl’s here, the No. 1 pick. There’s the obvious interest in him. But I thought what intrigues me more, and maybe it’s because I’ve been around him, is Kevin Garnett. His role as a mentor and certainly he’s been that before. He was that in Boston. In fact, I just talked with someone he played with at Farragut who was a freshman when he was there who played basketball in Iran last year. So I was curious. He’s always been a great leader but so much of how he’s led is by the way he practices - with the intensity and the way he plays on the court. And I thought that will be interesting to see. He’s not going to play as much. Apparently he’s going to practice as much which I find interesting in itself. So we just thought that the relationship between the two of them would be fascinating but the more research I’ve done I find myself leaning towards a KG story, but we’ll see.
KR: KG's been asked a few times since he's been back in Minnesota if he considers himself a coach on the floor. For some reason he just hates having that label. Why do you think that is?
JM: I would never, ever say that about him. And I think it’s different than that. Just in talking to old Celtics and a couple of Minnesota guys. He’s not telling guys what to do, which is what a coach does. He’s showing them how it’s done. And I think it’s a subtly that’s very, very different. And that’s what he’s always been great at and there’s a legendary story in Boston about a player and KG said ‘Come on Big Fella, let’s go work a little extra’ and the guy said ‘No, I’m good KG. I’m good.’ And Kevin destroyed him for his remaining time in Boston. Just destroyed him. So that kind of intensity to me could be your greatest strength and sometimes it can be your biggest weakness. I think he’s a great match with Karl because Karl’s personality is such, in the few days I’ve been here, clearly he’s a happy-go-lucky kid. He’s an outgoing kid. He’s a very confident kid. It seems to me it’s going to be a great match.
KR: When KG got traded to Boston he was in a situation where the pressure was to win. Same thing in Brooklyn. Then he came back to Minnesota and it’s the exact opposite. How was the transition period when KG went to Boston early on?
JM: It’s never seamless because everyone had their own routine. And remember, they took on Ray Allen in that same year and Ray is actually OCD. He had a very specific routine that starts three hours before the game so he comes in, does his shooting, shaves his head at the exact same time, he eats white chicken and rice. He has this very regimented pregame routine. But his routine is completed by the time the other guys get in so what was happening was, Kevin was getting ready for the game. He’s banging his head against the wall and doing all the stuff he does and Ray is already done so he’s on the court with the media and Kevin didn’t like it and the two of them had words often about it. But at the end it didn’t matter once they got on the court. So there was an adjustment for all those guys because it was also Paul Pierce’s team. And he’s the easiest-going guy out of those guys so he’s really the one that made it work. He got everybody to kind of fit in the proper way.
KR: And then you look at Karl. A guy like Gorgui Dieng at practice, for example, goes right back at Kevin and views everything as a competition. Karl isn’t quite that way. That's not to say that he's not competing, but you can almost see him thinking out there. He’s more likely to sit back and kind of take it in. To understand Kevin and take what he says at motivation, do you have to be wired a certain way?
JM: Danny Ainge said that to me, but the way he said it was that Kevin chose who he mentored in Boston. He doesn’t have that luxury here. If he didn’t like Karl Towns, it was going to be too bad. Because he’s going to have to work with him anyway. In Boston he could be more selective. It wasn’t always the big guys. One of the guys he was drawn to was Avery Bradley, the guard, because he wasn't playing at first and he had a little crisis of confidence and KG’s the one who got him through all that and the reason he chose him was because Avery was the kid who was always staying late and coming early and not making excuses and not talking back to the coaches, so I think Kevin in his own mind has ideas of who he wants to spend his time imparting his wisdom, if you will, and in Boston some guys he did, some guys not so much.
KR: The trade to Brooklyn, how tough do you think that experience was for him because he went from one place like Boston where he had so much success there and then he goes to Brooklyn where it was a total disaster?
JM: It was tough. I actually went down there right after Kevin and Paul got traded and did a sit down for ESPN television and I had never seen Pierce so disbanded in my life before or since. He was just shell shocked. Kevin a little less so and it was so good they had each other. But in that interview Kevin said to me, 'I think what happened here is wrong.' Now Kevin agreed to go. He had a no-trade clause. He agreed to go because of Paul but he really felt strongly that the Celtics shouldn't have traded Paul. That Paul had the right to decide that and so I think the adjustment for both of them was pretty significant but honestly I think it was much tougher for Paul. I don’t think Paul ever got comfortable there.
KR: And then KG comes back to Minnesota. I remember sitting there watching a practice and all of these tweets come in reporting that the Wolves had traded Thaddeus Young for Garnett. We were all waiting for KG to waive the no-trade clause. Why do you think he ultimately did that? It would have been easy for him to stay in Brooklyn, right?
JM: Well, he had a house here. He never left his house. This is where it all started for him. I think it meant a great deal to him. And of course we know, down the road here we’re talking about part ownership and there’s a lot more at stake here than just finishing up your career with the uniform you started with. He’s entrenched in the community. He’s entrenched with the ownership. So I think that has as much to do with it as anything. It’s just great to see him so happy and relaxed. I haven’t seen him like this ever, I don’t think.
KR: This is likely his last year or second to last year. The NFL is a little different, but when you look at a guy like Jerry Rice. He had some sad years in Seattle and maybe Oakland to an extent from what we were used to seeing. I think people would have been completely fine with that, though, if he was still in San Francisco. KG’s still going to play 18-20 minutes per game, but isn’t it just a really good thing to get him back in Minnesota for the NBA?
JM: This is a better ending than Brooklyn, that’s for sure. It was sad to watch him in Brooklyn. I don’t think he was healthy there. They didn’t use him properly. Everybody wants to limit Kevin’s minutes, which he hates. And it’s OK to limit his minutes but the way Brooklyn did it made no sense to me. Kevin was a rhythm player. Always has been, always will be. So the way they limited his minutes, is they would play him in these four or five-minute spurts. That’s not the way to limit his minutes. You give him a good run, sit him down for a while and bring him back for another one of those runs. I think historically that has been the best way to use him. It was difficult to watch both those guys, Kevin and Paul, in Brooklyn because they didn’t utilize some of his greatest strengths (like) the pick and pop. They didn’t run anything for him. So you know, terrible trade for Brooklyn because the Celtics are going to have their unprotected first-round draft pick this year and I think it’s going to be a pretty high pick.
KR: Have you been able to talk to Karl yet about Kevin?
JM: He loves him and from what I can understand that I find interesting was, Kevin talks, we know that, a lot of talk on defense, yelling out things. Karl is the same. Now, I’m not comparing them because obviously their personalities are pretty divergent but I thought it was interesting that both of them are that active and both are very defensive oriented before offensively. You guys are going to have a lot of fun with Karl. I think he’s a great kid. A big talent. I think people put too much stock into these guys as young players right off the top. They haven’t played a lot, I think people need to be patient but I think he’s just going to be great for the city. He’s got just a wonderful personality.