Garnett makes stand in NBA’s labor battle

Thirteen years ago, Kevin Garnett was the perfect target for the commissioner and the owners: the $126 million man. The NBA had gone to labor war over his contract, turning him into a talking point of the salary-cap crusade. Here was a star who embraced life in a cold-climate small market, who never pined for the bright lights, the big city. He made the Minnesota Timberwolves relevant, a contender, and they haven’t played an important basketball game since trading him.

He’s 35 years old, on a bad knee, and near the end of a Hall of Fame career. And yes, it takes some guts for Garnett to stand there in these Players Association news conferences, strong, defiant, and take the arrows again. He’s made more than $200 million in his career, and there are no more big contracts awaiting him. The Boston Celtics have one more season to make another title run, and then, with Garnett and Ray Allen free agents, the team will probably start to rebuild again.

For Garnett to privately fight for the union in meetings, to implore the players to make no more undue concessions even if it means they sit out the season, has to be one of the most unselfish acts in these labor talks. They’ll call him greedy, ungrateful, a pig, and they’ll be wrong. There’s no winning for Garnett in this labor fight, unless he’s left something for the next generation of players, the way his predecessors did for him.

“What he’s doing now, to me, it says a lot about K.G.,” says a younger NBA player who made about $5 million last season. “He’s willing to sit out the year, and give up [$21 million] at the end of his last big contract, and probably his last really good chance to win another ring. For him, this is about the principle.

“I don’t want to hear this stuff from our guys saying, ‘Oh, he can afford to sit out. He’s made a lot of money.’ I respect the [expletive] out of those guys standing up for us right now, him, Kobe, all of them.”
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Now, it’s the end of the line in 2011, and there was Garnett in the private players meeting on Tuesday in New York, screaming to his peers. “Apoplectic,” one source said. K.G. screamed that the players owed it to the next generation to stand firm, to concede no more to the owners in these talks. He had everything to lose – his $21 million for the year, his last chance at a championship with Boston – and still he keeps fighting for something here. When the NBA had its biggest member meeting in New York prior to the start of the lockout, it was Garnett delivering the most riveting, most emotional speech of this saga. It may not be what you believe in – or believe is justified or fair – but all these years later, when this labor fight didn’t have to be about K.G., he’s still willing to take the hits for it.