Snakes, salaries, and souring tastes: Kevin Garnett’s Minnesota Timberwolves legacy

As NBA legend Kevin Garnett is set to enter into the Hall of Fame, the point of the Minnesota Timberwolves still not retiring his jersey came up.

Kevin Garnett has been a…interesting character in the NBA for the last 20 or more years. An NBA champion with the Boston Celtics, MVP with the Minnesota Timberwolves, defensive powerhouse; Garnett made a name for himself in more than one way in the league.

Someone who has never been afraid of giving a reporter a quote, or an opposing player a bit of trash talk, KG seems to not really care how he is perceived in the wider media landscape.

To put it bluntly, he’s a bit crazy. Or, as Jackie MacMullin put it in a 2015 feature of Garnett:

"This was, after all, the superstar who had once dropped to all fours and barked at Portland rookie point guard Jerryd Bayless; whose pregame ritual was a violent head-banging assault of, and concurrent conversation with, the basketball stanchion; who would years later express his umbrage at Dwight Howard‘s post play by drilling him with an impromptu head-butt in the first quarter of a 2015 regular-season game against Houston."

Needless to say, Garnett has a very aggressive personality.

That personality, though it’s come to the forefront of conversation before, came up again as Kevin Garnett prepares to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, along with on-court rival (though they seem to get along fine off the court) Tim Duncan, and the late Kobe Bryant, whose untimely passing earlier this year will certainly be a feature of the induction ceremony.

Specifically, Garnett’s personality came up during an interview with The Athletic‘s Shams Charania. In that interview, Charania brought up that, while the Boston Celtics have announced they will be retiring Garnett’s number five jersey, the same can’t be said for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Although Garnett began and finished his career in Minnesota, and there were reports as late as 2017 that Garnett was interested in buying an ownership stake of the team, the Timberwolves have yet to retire Garnett’s 21. As is expected from him, Garnett had a pretty clear message:

"Glen [Taylor] knows where I’m at. I’m not entertaining it…But I don’t do business with snakes. I don’t do business with snake *expletive*. I try not to do business with openly snakes or people who are snake-like."

Garnett’s problems with team owner Glen Taylor are well established–heck, even I’ve commented on them a time or two–and it should really come as no surprise that he’s hesitant to having his number retired while Taylor is still at the helm. Even the aforementioned article that talked about KG wanting to buy an ownership stake in the team mentioned that it was with the condition that Taylor would no longer be associated with the franchise.

The troubles all really began around 2007, when (according to MacMullin on The Hoop Collective episode that was released on Thursday) Saunders refused to give Garnett the salary that he had so clearly earned in his time with Minnesota. In fact, MacMullin actually dispelled a rumor that said Garnett asked for a trade. In reality, he had to be coaxed into a trade, and that only happened once KG realized that the front office didn’t seem committed to him, and the Boston Celtics acquired Ray Allen, creating an intriguing opportunity in Massachusetts.

It seems too that those commitment issues still bother Garnett today. As he revealed in his interview with the Athletic:

"If I could actually go back and change anything, I would’ve left Minnesota a little earlier, knowing that the management wasn’t as committed as I was. Or wasn’t committed at all. I probably would’ve went to Boston or changed the situation earlier. I would’ve been a little younger and that means less wear and tear on the body. Teaming up with Paul (Pierce), I should’ve done that earlier. Who knows — I’m probably sitting here with another ring or two. But, yeah."

The above quote is only part of his response to a question about whether he believed Minnesota would have won a championship in 2004 if star point guard Sam Cassel hadn’t gone down with an injury. In an earlier part of the response, Garnett said he, “…doesn’t play should’ve, would’ve, could’ve…”, but it seems his first run with Minnesota may have soured him on Glen Taylor earlier than anybody knew.

Still, Garnett’s commitment to Minnesota has always been obvious. Windhorst pointed out, on the episode of The Hoop Collective mentioned above, that Garnett took a pay cut of $9 million or more three times in his career: once with the Timberwolves, once with Boston, and once with the Brooklyn Nets.

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Kevin Garnett’s commitment to Minnesota has at least resulted in one net positive: his mentoring of Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns, who calls Garnett his “Jedi Master”, has been taken under the wing of Garnett, who liked his “beast mentality”.

However, despite having a clear love for the Timberwolves organization and (almost) all those involved, Garnett has had escalating issues with Taylor.

It all reared its ugly head for the first time in 2015. When Kevin Garnett was brought back to the Timberwolves in a trade with the Nets, there were rumors that it include a handshake agreement to have then-head coach and president Flip Saunders create an owners consortium with Garnett to purchase the team from Taylor. Taylor had previously been looking to sell the team but wanted to make sure that it was to someone who wanted to keep the Timberwolves in Minnesota.

Unfortunately, Flip’s untimely death put an end to all of that. Saunders died suddenly of Hodgkin Lymphoma in October 2015. The passing came as a huge shock to the Timberwolves fans and organization, as just a few days prior his doctors had said that he was recovering well.

KG didn’t feel like Taylor handled the passing of Saunder’s the right way. He talked in an interview with the Associated Press‘ Jon Krawczynski back in 2017 about how, even though he liked the people Taylor brought in, Garnett felt like the owner was hurting those who had been loyal to the team and Flip–namely Sam Mitchell (a close friend and mentor to KG) and Milt Newton, the assistant coach and general manager respectively, who had a strong belief in Flip’s vision for the team–Garnett proceeded to orchestrate a buyout to leave the team.

In that interview, Garnett also discussed how he was upset by the team’s seemingly lackadaisical tribute to Saunders. He was notably absent from the video tribute that played during the home opener of the 2016-17 season, and about how it upset him that, at that time, there was no Flip banner in the rafters:

"And then, too, I thought he wasn’t celebrated the proper way. You have high school banners, you have (expletive) hockey banners (hanging in the rafters). You couldn’t put a Flip banner in Target Center, some place that we helped build? … We established that market. I helped grow that with him. You can’t put him in the (rafters)?"

The Timberwolves did not put up the Flip banner which currently hangs in the Target Center rafters until February of 2018, which in fairness, is almost disgustingly late.

If Taylor were to leave Minnesota, there is a chance that Kevin Garnett would be open to having his number retired then. The current head coach of the team is Ryan Saunders, son of the late Flip, and Gersson Rosas seems to be accepted by all the Timberwolves players.

KG did make note that he still had love for Minnesota, saying, “My days in Minnesota were great days, bro. It was a huge part of my progression. Flip Saunders and Kevin McHale were huge parts of my progression as a player.”

Regardless of whether or not Timberwolves fans will ever be seeing a 21 jersey hanging from the rafters of Target Center, Garnett’s legacy with the team could never be changed. He led the team on their best playoff performance ever, is undoubtedly the best player to ever don a Timberwolves uniform, and continues to make a positive impact through his mentorship of the team’s current players.

If it ever came own to choosing between Glen Taylor or Kevin Garnett, there’s no question which person Minnesota Timberwolves fans would side with.