Kevin Garnett: risky draft pick, unsung rookie ... NBA Icon

- You already know this Kevin Garnett. Garnett wasn't the first seven-foot tall basketball player who could perform every skill and play basically every position. But he certainly was the standout of his era and the precursor of a new generation because he turned that enormous versatility into superstardom, record salary, championship glory, MVP and defensive player of the year awards. He is rightly remembered as a pioneer of great talent. That game-changing excellence combined with Garnett's fiercely magnetic personality made him a hero to multiple fan bases and cemented his legacy as a quintessential NBA legend. This KG was obviously Minnesota's top Timberwolf and completed his heroic story with a title in Boston.

But to fully appreciate this clear

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he became, it's worth remembering some earlier versions of Garnett, the times when his legacy wasn't so secure. Before all this, Garnett was a fascinating teenage prospect. One whose amateur career endured great adversity, whose path was pioneering in his own right and whose potential confounded the orthodoxy of NBA coaches. Let's meet a young KG in the prism. (dramatic music) Kevin Garnett's unusual high school career is well documented, especially in a 2004 episode of the series, Beyond the Glory. Garnett grew up in South Carolina and single-handedly made Mauldin High School a force in the state.

Visit appointments also because of Garnett's supernatural combination of center size and guard refinement. He could shoot from anywhere, he could hit the rim, he could block shots, he could corral the boards. What else is there? Oh, sure, haggle and pass. He had that too, thanks Kevin. Instead of transferring to a prep school for his junior season, he stayed at Mauldin and earned South Carolina's Mr. Basketball award in 1994. Garnett was clearly one of the top prospects in his class, although he was not yet connected to any university like some. other classmates were. Part of that related to an incident that occurred in May 1994, at the end of Garnett's junior year at Mauldin.

A fight broke out (the details are not entirely clear) and a white student injured his leg in the commotion. As a result, Garnett and four other black students were arrested at school for second-degree lynching. Yes. South Carolina was known for a bizarre and objectively racist application of its old lynching laws. Garnett, who some witnesses said was simply a bystander, avoided jail time by successfully applying for a pretrial intervention program. Still, the ordeal shook the path to his senior year. Kevin's mother was legitimately uncomfortable with her son's immediate future in Carolina and she decided to move with him to Chicago, where she had spent a few previous summers participating in Nike camps.

Chicago wasn't an easy lifestyle transition for a small-town Southern kid, but when it came to basketball, Kevin

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ed up right where he left off. One of his summer mentors, coach William "Wolf" Nelson, lured Garnett to Farragut Academy, where he and co-star Ronnie Fields won the city championship. The nearly seven-foot player showed off his incredibly refined skills in another even more competitive region. Garnett, along with his future legend Tamika Catchings, was named Illinois Mr. Basketball in 1995. For a moment, this was Kevin Garnett, the kid king of two basketball-playing states. Obviously, Garnett's resume and profile made him an excellent college recruit.

Here we meet another ephemeral version of Kevin Garnett. After steadfastly resisting speculation for most of his senior season, Garnett finally relented in March 1995 and revealed a list of schools he was interested in. Illinois was on the list, but was considered a long shot. His co-star Ronnie Fields was leaning toward De Paul, also from the state, so that's on the list as well. A return home to the University of South Carolina was on the table. Garnett visited campus in April and went to a baseball game. Garnett also wanted to visit North Carolina for obvious reasons, but at least publicly the Tar Heels weren't that interested.

Boosters might have been bitter that freshmen Rasheed Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse left early for the NBA

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and worried that Garnett would follow in his footsteps, more on that soon. Still, UNC wasn't the favorite. That would be the University of Michigan, supposedly his mother's preferred choice. Garnett made it very clear that he liked the idea of ​​being a Wolverine when he showed up at a tournament in December 1994 wearing Michigan gear. Nowadays, you'll sometimes hear that Maryland was Garnett's true first choice. He has said it himself but Garnett gave Randy Moss a totally different answer. - I was going to North Carolina or I was going to Michigan. -Clearly, Garnett has fun with this hypothesis and certainly enjoyed flirting with colleges in '95.

It was a happy outcome given that legal nonsense once threatened to derail his future. That said, Garnett entered the spring of 1995 without a high enough ACT score to be eligible for the NCAA. He still had a better chance of taking the test, but not before a new possibility arose. In the mid-1970s, some basketball players became professionals right out of high school. In the decades since, that jump basically fell into disuse. But between his dazzling abilities and academic uncertainty, Garnett was a compelling candidate to join his ranks. In the spring of 1995, Garnett stumbled upon a tour in Chicago featuring greats like Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas.

And it was Thomas who, after getting a good look at KG, made a suggestion that changed his life, or at least that's how Kevin tells it. - Isiah Thomas, come to me: "hey kid, you can go to the league right now." I was like, "what?" "What are you talking about Zeke?" He said, "come here, let me tell you what to do." - Certainly relevant here is that in addition to being a recently retired superstar, Thomas managed basketball operations for the new Toronto Raptors franchise, who were about to make their first

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in the NBA

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, it turned out to be the seventh in general.

That guy who says you should go straight to the league is pretty convincing. However, this was a

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proposition. The deadline to declare for the draft was May 14. If he was careful, didn't hire an agent, things like that, Garnett could declare and still preserve his amateur eligibility if he backed out, but the NCAA had its own deadlines and being reinstated to play college baseball could be a whole process. And that's if he raised his ACT score. Likewise, Garnett embodied just as big a potential risk for NBA teams in the draft. The 1995 draft class already seemed poised to break with convention.

The top-ranked prospects, UNC's Wallace and Stackhouse plus Alabama's Antonio McDyess and Maryland's Joe Smith were all college sophomores. That group alone was young enough compared to previous draft classes to unsettle lottery teams. Now, maybe we're including a kid with no college experience, the GMs would need some convincing. Garnett tried. He declared in favor of the draft, but insisted that college remained his first choice. Soon after, NBA decision-makers from lottery teams watched Garnett train in Chicago with no one next to him except Pistons assistant John Hammond. Garnett seemed visibly nervous, but he still showed what he could do.

It was a dazzling flourish of his tantalizing skill set, albeit without any real competition present. If presented with the opportunity to draft this trailblazing prospect, this kid who you and I know was destined for greatness, would the GMs believe their eyes or would they chicken out? Well, the first two Warriors and Clippers had other plans. The 76ers, selected third, were impressed but openly cautious about drawing conclusions from a one-on-zero workout. Washington Bullets general manager John Nash wondered if he had simply envisioned a special talent, but team owner Abe Pollin bluntly said "no, we're not drafting a high school kid." The fifth-drafted Minnesota Timberwolves later said they attended that workout primarily so they could drum up interest in Garnett in hopes that one of those big four college sophomores might come to them.

Other teams considered moving up to select Garnett, but didn't pull the trigger. And what about the guy who convinced Garnett to do all this? Well, if the Raptors drafted Garnett at seven years old, Isiah Thomas had a novel plan for the novel prospect. Thomas would have enrolled Garnett in college and activated him only for home games. When the Raptors traveled, Garnett would stay and, I guess, do schoolwork. Oh, and speaking of school, on June 28, 1995, Garnett finally received the news he had been waiting for. He had scored fairly high on the ACT. He was academically eligible to play college basketball.

But here's the thing about June 28, 1995. Too late, Garnett went all-in on his draft gamble and it paid off. The Timberwolves, who had supposedly attended his workout as a bluff, came out smitten and took Garnett fifth overall. For the first time in decades and at the end of a long and difficult personal journey, a player was drafted into the NBA straight out of high school. This was Kevin Garnett in the spring of 1995, a 19-year-old who alternately enthralled, frightened and inspired general managers to reconsider the convention of professional basketball. A pioneer who set the stage for Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and so many others in between, for better or worse, to take that same leap.

And then the calendar turned a few pages and Kevin Garnett was just another NBA

rookie

on a bad team. It's fun to reflect on that

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year, as we now know that next season Garnett would become an All-Star for a playoff team, the first step on his path to MVP and championship trophies. But here, in 1995, Garnett opened his rookie season on the bench. Timberwolves coach Bill Blair preferred veterans in his starting group, guys like Christian Laettner, Tom Gugliotta and Sam Mitchell. At first, Garnett showed his potential in fits and starts between short-minute, low-production nights, throwing in small spurts like 19 points and eight rebounds in a November loss to the Spurs.

In garbage time and utility stents, he shot some 3-pointers, he threw an eyebrow-raising pass, he handled the ball, you could catch glimpses of a special skill set, but the Wolves weren't going to hand the keys to a teenager. But if we caught glimpses, Sam Mitchell saw the future. Mitchell was a veteran journeyman who had joined Minnesota in its expansion season, 1989, when Garnett was still in high school. Mitchell had played and practiced with every Minnesota Timberwolf ever, but never with anyone like 19-year-old Kevin Garnett. The boy was not only talented but also tenacious, hell-bent on winning every exercise in practice, obsessed with the nuances of the game, from history to strategy.

As Garnett led his teammates off the practice field behind the scenes, the Wolves' season shifted into full rebuild mode. Minnesota president Kevin McHale fired Coach Blair after 20 games and replaced him with an old friend, Flip Saunders, who took over his first NBA coaching job. The changes reduced the Wolves' presence, which could have meant more playing time for Sam Mitchell. But Sam had a better idea. He told Saunders to start the rookie. He gives Garnett those minutes. Because? Because he is better than me. And while KG couldn't fix the Wolves, at least not yet, he did show even more of his future stardom.

Several season highs against the Mavs in February, 33 points against the Celtics in March and some real statistical feasts in April. Debut pieces from a future award-winning master of offense and defense. But still, for the moment, Garnett was just one precocious youngster among many. Six NBA rookies received more minutes than Garnett, five received more votes when it came time to choose Rookie of the Year. Of course, all of these guys are much older than KG. This class included a 31-year-old rookie. But anyway, Kevin got only the first vote. Maybe this person saw what Sam Mitchell saw. Very soon we would all see it.

Before long, Garnett would lead Minnesota to the playoffs, racking up individual glory along the way. He would help lead the Boston Celtics to the championship. Obviously, he would be remembered as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, but the path ofKevin Garnett wasn't always confident. He certainly wasn't simple and his first turns made him a symbol, a pioneer long before he became the eternal

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we know now.