The Minnesota Timberwolves played a small but vital role in last week’s historic trade deadline activity, acquiring former Wolves forward Kevin Garnett in exchange for Thaddeus Young.
Kevin Garnett, the single greatest player to ever wear a Minnesota Timberwolves jersey, will take the court tonight wearing his iconic Timberwolves Number 21 once again. Garnett, acquired at the trade deadline last Thursday, is returning home to the same Minnesota team that drafted him. Garnett won an NBA MVP award with the Timberwolves, was part of one of the most promising guard-forward combos of the last 25 years with Stephon Marbury, and led the team all the way to the Western Conference Finals in 2004.
Of course, that was all a very long time ago. Garnett eventually separated from the Timberwolves and went on to win an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics. Then he moved to the Brooklyn Nets for several years, but now, has returned to the Timberwolves.
The Garnett story is well known to many basketball fans and is religious text in Minnesota. It is the iconic figure of Garnett that has the cult of Minnesota basketball buzzing again.
Garnett’s return to Minnesota has lifted all the downtrodden hearts in one of the NBA’s most injury-riddled lottery-stricken franchises. Charley Walters of the Pioneer Press reported that the Timberwolves have had 300 new deposits for 2015-16 season tickets. The hype is real. The Twin Cities’ team is already riding high from Zach LaVine’s mesmerizing Slam Dunk Contest performance, the return of Ricky Rubio, and the emergence of Andrew Wiggins as a virtual lock to win Rookie of the Year. Now they have brought back Kevin Garnett which will in turn keep the team’s name in the mouths of fans and pundits alike, boost ticket and merchandise sales, and bring the locker room some much needed veteran hometown leadership.
There was some reasonable blow back to this trade. The Timberwolves did cut loose Thaddeus Young in order to acquire Garnett, a player they had just months earlier snagged as part of the Love-Wiggins trade, sending out a protected first-round pick in the process. Many people believe that the Wolves would have been better off with Young and the pick, a valid point of view to hold, but perhaps not the best one. In basic numbers, the Wolves were getting more minutes out of Young than they will at any point in the future from Garnett, and there was a disparity in their averages on the season.
Young is averaging 32.8 minutes, 14.2 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.7 assist and 1.8 steals. Based on the Timberwolves trade of Young, they clearly showed that they did not believe Young was part of the Wolves future and likely did not want him around next season at the price of $10 million. Not to say that they should want Garnett at that price, or more, with his current season averages of 20.3 minutes, 6.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1 steal per game.
Beyond the minutes however, things get much closer when looking at advanced stats. Young has a true shooting percentage of 49.3 total, 49.1 with the Wolves, and a usage percentage of 21.1. Garnett has a true shooting percentage of 48.6, as such the difference is borderline negligible, while his usage is 18.2, the lowest number since his rookie season. Young left the Wolves with a PER of 14.9, which he has increased since joining the Nets to 15.1, while Garnett has not yet played for the Wolves and sports a PER of 14.8. The numbers are not as far apart as you would think at first glance and Garnett’s limited time on the court will allow other players like fellow trade deadline acquired player Adreian Payne to get some time on the court to develop his NBA game.
Garnett is going to deliver a different kind of excitement than the rookies, no matter how talented, and fringe players who have had their seasons derailed by injuries can provide. His leadership to the team in the locker room, practice, and from the bench, has the potential to impact the trajectory of the Timberwolves franchise significantly.
The Timberwolves plan to work out a two-year extension with Garnett beyond his deal that ends this season. The most logical reasoning for this leads back to the idea of his leadership and ability to mentor young players. Losing shouldn’t be fun and there have been recent comments from Flip Saunders about the young players perhaps enjoying themselves a bit too much after loses, something that it would be very hard to see a veteran winner like Garnett tolerating. Without even setting foot in the locker room, Garnett already has LaVine, the tenant of Garnett’s former locker, “scared.” And that is a good thing. LaVine is young, cocky and talented. With some direction, someone lighting a fire under him, he could mature and take his game more seriously. This is true of all the young Timberwolves on the current roster.
Garnett can also impact the future of this franchise. Beyond being the greatest player in franchise history, most-loved son of Minnesota basketball, and proven winner, he has future aspirations to possibly own the Timberwolves once his career as a player has ended. Two more years of Kevin Garnett in uniform lines his pockets with more millions of dollars and cements his legend as an icon of the Timberwolves. It is unlikely that current Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor is willing to sell at this time, instead waiting to first find out what the Atlanta Hawks franchise sells for. However, Garnett may eventually be involved with a group that looks to acquire the team.
One angle that is important to acknowledge is what it means for the future options of young players. Kevin Love demanded a trade and got it this past offseason, and in a few years the Timberwolves could be looking down the barrel of a similar gun when their rookie deals for Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine near an end. Who better than the franchise’s all-time great Kevin Garnett to instill some form of loyalty and pride in those young players? What better leader and ambassador of the Timberwolves franchise could you have present every day, making a case through leadership and experience. The focus, effort, discipline and hard work that Kevin Garnett would demand of young players can influence them, and that has to be part of the play by the front office.
Call it Stockholm Syndrome, call it sports psychology, call it glamoring – whatever you call it, the Timberwolves have the chance to create a new Timberwolves identity in some of the NBA’s youngest and brightest talent for the future, while filling seats, generating buzz and selling more jerseys in the now. Bringing in Kevin Garnett to be a locker room leader and culture ambassador is probably one of the best ways to do that, and also one of the more optimistic spins you can put on this trade. Kevin Garnett was the lone wolf that left, but now he has returned to the pack, possibly for good.
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