Eleven years ago, Kevin Garnett was traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves to the Boston Celtics. This was not only a turning point for the teams involved, many developments in the league can still be traced back to this transaction. It almost didn’t come about…
NBA transactions never happen in a vacuum. Everything interacts with each other, exerts influence and is somehow confused with each other, which is why certain events can often be “traced back” to a certain point. Of course, you will hardly ever get to a point that definitely marks a beginning.
Nevertheless, there are particularly significant, particularly drastic events in the history of the NBA. In recent history, there is hardly a transaction that has influenced so many different teams and personalities and so many trends as the one that is celebrating its eleventh anniversary today, July 31, 2018.
Kevin Garnett’s trade from the Minnesota Timberwolves to the Boston Celtics has done much more than you might notice at first glance. Therefore, here is an attempt to trace at least the most important traces and paths. Because: Surprisingly many of them reunite at a certain point.
As with any big deal, you have to start a bit further ahead with the KG trade, because the whole thing could have taken several completely different directions at an early stage. Let’s look back to early summer 2007, a few days before the NBA draft – also known in Boston as one of the most precarious times in franchise history.
The Celtics had focused their entire season on the draft, in other words: they filled up to an extent that would have made even Sam Hinkie proud. 24 victories this season, the NBA’s second-best record, partly because they only had their only all-star Paul Pierce available in 47 games. After years of mediocrity, it was hoped that Draft would finally bring about a turnaround.
With Kevin Durant and Greg Oden, the focus throughout the season was on two players who were about to jump into the NBA and for whom it was clear that draft positions 1 and 2 would be filled by them.
Boston are said to have preferred (correctly) Durant over most teams, but that didn’t matter: The Celtics were only awarded the 5th pick in the lottery, so they fell far behind. A whole season of refuelling had been a dog’s breakfast, or so it seemed.
In Boston, more and more voices were heard calling for the dismissal of head coach Doc Rivers, and Pierce, then 29 years old, was also about to ask for a trade. General Manager Danny Ainge had to take action, otherwise his chair would have shaken relatively soon. After all, the plan to cut the season off was his.
Ainge, however, still had an ace up his sleeve, or a player he’d been after for a long time. Kevin Garnett. The 2004 MVP had always been loyal to the Minnesota Timberwolves until then, but now he has been waiting for a play-off since 2004 and saw his heyday coming to an end without ever having a real chance of winning the title. At the age of 31, he had signalled for the first time that he was not averse to a trade, and Ainge finally sensed his chance.
Ainge had assets in the form of young players and draft picks, as well as a very good relationship with Timberwolves GM Kevin McHale, his former teammate and good friend. Actually, the prospect of a deal was quite good despite the disappointing lottery – there was only one relatively big problem: KG had no interest in the Celtics.
He wanted to have a Contender and ideally nice weather, not the second worst team in the league in cold Boston. As he had only one more year of contract and made it clear that he would not renew with the Celtics, Ainge initially refrained from giving up his No.5 pick and Al Jefferson, then Celtics’ greatest talent, for Garnett.
Now other conversations picked up speed. The Lakers offered Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum, but McHale hated the Lakers and did not want to make them the Contender again. A deal with the Warriors for Jason Richardson, among others, is said to have already been made, as Chris Mullin later revealed, but failed again. The Suns were interested in a three-team trade that would have brought Shawn Marion to Boston. The Cavs, the Bulls, the Mavs, all wanted KG. But no deal was going to happen.
Meanwhile Ainge persisted and tried another way. He involved the No.5 pick, which by the way became Jeff Green, in a trade for the aging Sonics star Ray Allen, who wasn’t well received in Boston at first: Why did they sacrifice part of the future just for another old wingman? A team of Pierce, Allen, Jefferson and the young Rajon Rondo would not have been too dangerous yet.
However, this was not taken into account: Ainge had arranged the Allen deal without giving up the most important assets apart from the No.5 pick. And at least with Garnett, the trade made a certain impression – after none of the other deals were realized and Ainge remained constantly in discussions with McHale, Garnett agreed to meet with the Celtics GM personally after some back and forth.
At this meeting, which the Timberwolves had to allow both parties first, the spark quickly flashed over and a few days later the deal was actually carried out: Garnett and his then monster contract went to Boston in exchange for Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair and two first-round picks.
All of a sudden the balance of power in the NBA had shifted and a kind of “super team” had emerged – even if the term “Big Three” was still used at the time. Several happy circumstances had helped, not least the friendship between McHale and Ainge; although Jefferson seemed like a star for a while, the Wolves could almost certainly have gotten a better package for their longtime franchise player from the Lakers.
And that was certainly not the only reason why they had to wait until 2018 (!) for another play-off: With the one 2009 first-round pick they got from Boston, they chose Johnny Flynn at position 6 – a pick later a certain Stephen Curry went over the counter.