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Garnett must change to lead Boston to crown
by Dennis Hans / July 31, 2007

The Boston Celtics' acquisition of Kevin Garnett all but guarantees them two titles in the next three seasons. Unfortunately, the title to which I refer is the Atlantic Division regular-season crown.

Actually, the Celts could very easily make it to the NBA Finals a couple times, but they remain a long shot to win even one championship. Boston would have been a more legitimate contender and for a longer window by holding on to the gifted-and-getting-better Al Jefferson, and using Theo Ratliff’s expiring contract to pick up another quality player, as advocated by astute Celtic blogger Jesse Nunes.

Boston could have ended up with four very good-to-great players rather than three, and with a better spread of ages. Their new trio will be 30 (Paul Pierce), 31 (KG) and 32 (Ray Allen) next season. With that group, the clock is ticking, and if just one thirtysomething pulls up lame and is unavailable for the postseason, the Celts are going nowhere. A quality foursome is a less risky proposition, especially if two are in their twenties.

Even though I don’t think Danny Ainge took the best route, here’s my advice on how to make the best of what is still a pretty good situation:

• Have Paul Pierce drop 15 pounds. It’s not that he’s out of shape (he’s not), but he’s more likely to avoid another injury, retain his quickness and improve his slipping defense if he bucks the idiotic NBA trend toward bulkiness. One factor in KG’s continued high level of production as he approaches his 12th season is that he has stayed lean. The other day I saw a 1966 playoff film, and a very slim 32-year-old named Bill Russell was the dominant force. In that postseason he averaged 19 points, 25 rebounds, 48 minutes and countless (but untabulated in those days) blocked shots.

• Give KG a chance to be the defensive goalie, like Russell, Tim Duncan, Marcus Camby and Hakeem Olajuwon. In the press release announcing the trade, Ainge spoke of Garnett bringing a “defensive presence.” When I dissected his game two years ago, I talked about the absence of any such presence. That is the huge difference that is missed by those who argue that KG is as good or better than Duncan. In my view KG is not in Duncan’s class, and the only way he can close the gap is to try his hand as the defensive “man in the middle.” Even if he’s only good rather than great in that role, he’ll have more of an effect on the game than he’s been having as a guy who guards his own man very well but has only a modest impact on the other four foes on the court.

• Hope that KG will settle for a modest dollar figure on his three-year extension, which commences in 2009-10, his third season with the Celtics. That will also be his 14th NBA season, and the odds of him being durable and dominant in seasons 14 through 16 are long – even for a slender guy who started young and has an injury-free history. He’s put a lot of NBA miles on his legs. Celtic fans can only hope he’ll be one of the few – like Robert Parish and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – who endurs. KG’s bloated T-Wolf contracts hamstrung the (admittedly shaky) Minnesota management, and his best chance for contending in the extension seasons is to settle for 10-12 million per. But don’t bet on that happening.

• Keep Rajon Rondo in the offense and insist that from day one he take every open shot and look to finish in the paint. Rondo developing a reliable jump shot is a key to playoff success and title hopes, and that shot won’t develop if it’s put in moth balls during the regular season while the team piles up wins relying on the silky strokes of Allen, Pierce and Garnett. It’s critical that Doc Rivers keep the big picture in mind and live with Rondo’s inevitable ups and downs, much as Gregg Popovich did with a young Tony Parker.

As for Minnesota, it needed a fresh start, and the trade provides it.

Jefferson is already a more accomplished and creative low-post scorer than Garnett, and he’ll only get better working with maestro Kevin McHale. (The one disappointing aspect of KG’s offensive game, which I also wrote about two years ago, is that he’s somewhat predictable and tends to settle for jumpers. Thus, he gets the same respectable 22 points each night whether he’s guarded by a good defender or a stiff. As with his defensive game, he’s never given himself a chance to see how dominant he can be.) Jefferson, on the other hand, is clever and crafty and could very well spark a renaissance in low-post artistry, in the manner of McHale and Olajuwon.

Jefferson is the key for the Wolves, but if a few other elements of the deal also click, whether players, draft picks or both, McHale will have resurrected a franchise and rid himself of the goat horns he’s been wearing for years.

Gerald Green will get a chance to build on the promise he showed last season, Ryan Gomes is a solid forward, and Sebastian Telfair is a long shot but can get his career headed back in the right direction by proving to be a reliable backup at the point to Randy Foye.

Getting back the Wolves own conditional draft pick from a previous trade with Boston could come in handy, given that the team won’t be piling up wins in the tough Western Conference any time soon. The Wolves also get the 2009 Celtics first-round pick, which probably won’t be worth much but could be a lottery pick if one or two aging Celtic stars break down – as two of them did last season when they were two years younger than they’ll be in 2008-09. (The Celts get to keep the pick if it’s one of the top three.)

So there are lots of ways this deal can work for the Wolves. But the best chance for it to work for the Celtics is for Garnett to be a new kind of player in his new town. He’s shown for 11 seasons he can be very good night in and night out. At 31, it’s time he dared to be great.

Dennis Hans’s essays on basketball – including the styles, rhythms and fundamentals of free-throw shooting – have appeared online at the Sporting News and Slate. His writings on other topics have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and Miami Herald, among other outlets.

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