Note: This article is a solid three-weeks out of date.  I could chalk it up to a busy schedule, but mostly, it took so long because it was so difficult to write.  Nothing I wrote down just seemed to compare with the actual magnitude of the moment.  This is my best effort at trying to put into words what that fateful night in June meant to me.  It's probably not my best piece, but it's from the heart.

I was twelve years old when Kevin Garnett put on that Minnesota Timberwolves cap on draft night.  Over half my life later, my favorite player finally won an NBA Championship. To an outsider, that may not seem like such a phenomenal event.  Championships are won in sports multiple times a year, and the story of a long-suffering player or fan base finally getting a taste of glory is certainly nothing new. But to dismiss what happened on June 17th, 2008 as something common-place or meaningless would be an incredible mistake.  To those of us Timberwolves fans who stared wide-eyed at the television screen as a lanky teenager stumbled across the stage and shook David Stern's hand, that night meant everything.
 
As sports fans, we spend an inordinate amount of time and money discussing the team, attending games, buying merchandise, and obsessing over every single move our front office makes. Somewhere along the way, most of us convince ourselves that we matter as much to the team as the team does to us.  We trick ourselves into thinking that our favorite players will be as delighted to meet us as we are when we encounter them.  The fact that we do this to ourselves is not surprising at all.  After all the investment we make into a team, it's psychologically devastating when we actually stop and realize the people we're adoring don't even know we exist. Instead, we just block those thoughts from our mind and continue our charade.

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Note: This article appears on www.DeROK.Net

In 91 games with the Boston Celtics, Kevin Garnett was able to accomplish what he could not in over 900 games in Minnesota: reach the NBA Finals. Yet when KG made his biggest step ever towards the promised land, not a single Timberwolves fan I know felt the least bit of resentment. There was only joy. This was something we'd been waiting for since David Stern called his name that night in June of '95, and although it didn't happen the way we'd all dreamt it would, it still happened nonetheless. Blue and green or green and white - the color of the jersey didn't matter. It was all about the man inside it; the man who shed our tears, bled our blood, and bore our pain for twelve seasons, the man who came to embody everything the Minnesota Timberwolves stood for, the man who took us all to a higher place.

Perhaps the most surprising moment in all the post-game celebration was how somber Kevin Garnett appeared. This is the man who used to slam the basketball against his skull after missing free throws, who lept up on the scorer's table and waved a towel after defeating the Kings in the semi-final round in '04, who broke down sobbing because his team was under .500 in 2005. Now that he was finally headed towards The Finals after thirteen years of striving, you would expect KG to be on the brink of a seizure. Instead, he was just the opposite: stone-faced, emotionless, and distant. After thinking about Garnett's reaction for a bit, I've come to the conclusion that this was his way of "getting down to business". He was making a conscious decision to not hoot or holler about winning the Eastern Conference, because that was never his goal. From the moment that final second ticked off the clock Friday night, Kevin Garnett was focused on nothing else but winning his title. The Big Ticket will never have a better chance to raise the Larry O'Brien Trophy than he does right now and these next four to seven games could set his NBA legacy in stone. For him, the stakes have truly never been higher.

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Boston Celtics / Minnesota Timberwolves Playoff Preview

Note: This article appears on www.DeROK.Net

 

It's 2003-04 all over again for KG and Sam I Am

This article appears on www.DeROK.Net/wolves

At the risk of sounding like a total hypocrite after writing my piece about contract buyouts, I am extremely happy to see Sam Cassell once again paired with Kevin Garnett.  I certainly don't like the way Sam I Am weaseled his way out of L.A. and over to Boston, but I won't let those circumstances stop me from enjoying what's to come. The biggest regret of my life as a sports fan is that I never got to see the 2003-04 Timberwolves win the NBA Championship.  Ask any Minnesota fan and they'll gladly tell you how amazing that season's squad was.  They were simultaneously the biggest underdogs and yet the most formidable opponent. They loved playing together, they came up big in the biggest of moments, and they collectively took the most downtrodden fanbase in the league and lifted them to unimaginable heights.  In my entire life, I have never loved a team like I loved that team or enjoyed as season like I enjoyed that season. 

And it was all thanks to Sam Cassell. 

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With KG getting injured and falling on the way to the tunnel due to pain, only to make a late-game return, I knew we were potentially due for another WWF-esque moment from the Big Ticket.  I was really hoping to see him raise his arms as he entered and get the crowd going nuts. It's absolutely incredible when he gets them going like that, even if it does get the home crowd rallied up against my own team. 

Instead, we were "treated" to KG's tirade at the end of the game in which he popped out his jersey to display "Celtics" and kept repeating "This is what I'm talking about Motherf***ers!"

I have to admit, I love it when KG goes bonkers, but tonight I found it a little tough to swallow. It seemed to me that his actions were a little insulting to the Wolves organization. The way he clearly pointed out "Celtics" over and over again made it appear that he was driving home the message that the C's are so much better than the Timberwolves. 

Trying to take a more objective look, Garnett was at home and was celebrating in front of the Boston fans. His actions could just be his way of saying "I'm happy to be here, to be a part of this organization, etc." But in the back of my mind, it still just seemed like there was a little bit of anti-Wolves sentiment there as well.  I've seen him do the jersey pop before, but this one just seemed a little more enthusiastic, a little longer, and thus, a little more deliberate.

Trust me, KG has every reason to want to stick it to McHale, Taylor, and whoever else put him through twelve years of hell with their bad management decisions. I would just like to think that Kevin would also remember that there's thousands and thousands of Timberwolves fans who still support him just as strongly as ever.  We treat him as if he were still one of our own.  When he went down in the 4th quarter with the abdominal strain, it never crossed my mind to think "Yes!  We have a better shot of winning!".  Instead, I was annoyed with the Wolves as if they'd just injured one of their own teammates.

Through location, loyalty, or a twisted gluttony for punishment, we're all still following and supporting the Wolves in Garnett's absence.  Because of that, any action he does to insult the organization can be taken as an insult to us.  Truth be told, as much as I consider him to still be "one of us", he's really not.  The fans on this site and I can take our shots at the team because it's "our" team.  Anything negative we say is out of love coupled with frustration, and at the end of the day we still bleed for this organziation.  Garnett doesn't have that relationship any more and every move he made last night was going to come under major scrutiny.  I just wish he'd been a litte more careful, and, without sounding like a total wuss, a little more sensitive to the people he left behind. 

Again, the game was in Boston and he was celebrating with the Boston fans.  It's not far-fetched to think that he got caught up in the moment and forgot about the thousands in the Midwest who were watching him over the television.  After twelve seasons of doing the incredible for us, I'm more than willing to give KG a pass on this one.  I just seriously hope we don't see anything similar when the Ticket comes back to the Target Center, because that would simply be inexcusable.

My final word of advice to KG would be this - if you're going to pull out a WWF move on February 8th, make it this one:  Act like you're going to run up to Al Jefferson and clock him in the face, and then instead raise his arm into the air as a sign of solidarity with your long-time fans and the players they now support in your absence. 

Trust me, the crowd will love it!

...When Kevin Garnett runs wild on you???????????

For those of you without NBA League Pass, I felt that I absolutely had to share this with you.  This is a series of clips that show Kevin Garnett bringing an entire stadium into pandemonium, followed by an outburst of emotion greater than any athlete has ever displayed, followed by a phenomenal team celebration.  Unfortunately there's no audio, but just imagine an entire stadium gone completely bezerk, and you'll catch the drift of what's going down.

Please keep in mind that this all occurred during a regular season NBA game in January.  I repeat, not the NBA playoffs.  January. 

What Kevin Garnett is doing in Boston is something that perhaps no athlete has ever done before.  He has his entire team and fanbase so geared up for every game, that they just come out and decimate every comer.  If you've been to an NBA regular season game, you know that intensity level is less than optimum on most nights.  So imagine being the Houston Rockets expecting to walk into your typical away arena filled with casual fans who will occasionally hoot and holler, and then getting smashed upside the head by 25,000 people crammed into a Hummer crusing at 90 miles per hour.  Do you think they even stand a chance?

Look at their faces of the Rockets while Kevin Garnett is doing his thing!  They're completely shell shocked!  The look on Mike James' face is priceless.  It's awe, stupor, and disgust all combined into one. He's probably wondering where this KG was last season!  I start to wonder that too a bit, but then I remember all the burdens the man had to bear in Minnesota.  This is him, finally set free.  It's pure beauty, and it's utterly infectious.  This is Vince McMahon's dream realized - an all-powerful, ultra-charastmatic superstar, who has the entire crowd eating out of the palm of his hand.  The only thing I can compare it to is Hulkamania at it's apex.    The only difference is that this is 100% real.  It's unbelievable!

I wish that this was happening in a Wolves jersey so badly, but the fact that it's happening at all is just so awesome in itself.  KG is blossoming into something that the world has never seen before, and this is so much bigger than the Wolves, Celtics, and perhaps even the NBA.  This is history - this is Elvis, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Moses - you name it - leading the way and taking us all to the promised land.  This is what sports is all about, people! 

We always knew Garnett had it in him.  Now the world is finally starting to see it as well. There's no going back from here.  The revolution of "fun" has officially begun!

Note: This article appears at the Minnesota Timberwolves Den at DeROK.Net

Kevin Garnett is back!

I had been here before.

Though my memory had been clouded by years of disappointment, apathy, and broken dreams, I could still faintly remember standing in this place. The electric atmosphere and pulsing energy seemed so familiar. And the man in the center of the crowd, orchestrating it all, had a face I knew almost as well as my own.

The place was the TD Banknorth Garden. The event, a regular season game between the Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic. The man in the center, of course, was none other than Kevin Garnett. But as I sat there in front of my TV screen watching the C's improve their record to an astounding 22-3, I may as well have been seated in the lower level of the Target Center in April of 2004, watching Garnett's other "Big 3" take down the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs. Everything about this game just seemed that monumental.

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I know I haven't written about the Wolves much lately, but I kind of take the stance of "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all" when it comes to my teams.  Yes, there are several Wolves players who are working their butts off and showing a level of dedication you can't help but tip your hat to, but overall, there's a whole lot of issues this team has to deal with and I just don't feel like getting into them right now. 

So on a brighter note...  Kevin Garnett... Wow!  The moment you start feeling glum after checking out the Wolves standings at 1-10, just take a peek over to the Easter Conference and check out the Celtics flying high at 11-1!  If that doesn't put at least a smirk on your face, you obviously didn't live through the KG era in Minnesota. Truth be told, I'd gladly see the Wolves go 8-74, if the C's go 74-8.  That might not be the politically correct thing to bring up, but the Wolves could use a good draft pick, and it would be incredibly satisfying to watch Kevin have that kind of success. 

Let me tell you something, if you haven't ordered NBA League Pass yet, you're doing yourself a huge disservice.  For example, tonight I got to watch KG put up 23, 11, and 5. To top it off, the Celtics were down 93-95 with 4.7 seconds to go and Charlotte was inbounding on the Celtics side of the court.  What happens?  Eddie House knocks away Jason Richardson's inbounds pass, Pierce comes up with the ball and has the presence of mind to find a wide open Ray Allen, who drains a three at the buzzer!  Watching KG leap through the air, charge down the court, and jump into a pile-on full of joy is something I haven't seen in a good four seasons.  After enduring the past three years, it did me a whole lot of good to see that. 

For several months after the trade, I kind of had the "happy for KG, but sad that he's not here" vibe going on.  That's completely gone now.  I'm just happy for KG and I'm happy for myself because I get to see him win.  I don't care that he's not doing it in a Wolves jersey.  Nights like tonight just weren't going to happen for him here, and nights like tonight make that 1-10 over in the standing for the T-Wolves much, much less painful.  In many ways we're all better off.  Garnett gets to be relevant again and possibly win a title.  The Wolves get a chance to rebuild and maybe draft another superstar this spring.  And us, we get to experience both of those things at the same time...  If you've got League Pass, that is.

So seriously, get League Pass.  The Timberwolves are 1-10, and it's much cheaper than a therapist.