National Basketball Association

What Timberwolves' Garnett meant to this generation

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

For many basketball fans, Kevin Garnett has been in the NBA their entire life, and the Timberwolves big man meant volumes to the generation that grew up with him.

Kevin Garnett was drafted in June of 1995. I was born in May of 1996. Thus, Kevin Garnett has been in the NBA longer than I have been alive.

With Garnett retiring, a piece of not only my childhood, but my life as a basketball fan, will be missing a key element. The Big Ticket has been one of my favorite players for as long as I can remember.

Basketball has always been a passion of mine, and KG has always been a guy that I loved to watch. I wanted to be like him when I played as a kid, yelling and beating my chest in church league games when I was just ten years old.

His MVP campaign of 2003-04 is something that I will never forget.

Garnett made mid-range jump shots and playing defense cool. And it wasn’t just that one year, either; it was every year.

Random aside: Kevin Garnett was on the cover of the greatest video game ever: Backyard Basketball. I used to play that game all the time, and he was my first pick every time.

What I wouldn’t do to play that game right now.

And then, there was that Celtics team.

I know it wasn’t the Timberwolves, but how could you not love the 2007-08 Boston team? I could sit here and name every single player and member of the staff on that team.

And then, KG did this, dropping the most inspirational three words ever…

After a one-and-a-half year stint in Brooklyn, coming back to play for the Wolves under the late Flip Saunders was huge. It threw everyone back in time ten years; growing up watching KG my entire life and then watching him come back was amazing.

Sure, this just-past era boasted the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, but Kevin Garnett was there, too. He was a monster, he was tough, he was mean, and he was cool. It is difficult to put into words what he means to my generation of basketball fans.

Ultimately, I wish he had played just one more season, making him the guy that played the most seasons ever at what would have been 22 campaigns.

Basketball fans of my generation will never forget Garnett. He impacted not only the game, but this generation as a whole. We will never again see anyone quite like him.

Hopefully, we’ll continue to see him in the basketball world. Timberwolves’ owner Glen Taylor stated that he is open to Garnett getting into ownership.

Don’t ask if he will go into coaching, however; we already know that answer.

In his words, “Hell nah”.