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soft dramatic music
[Kevin Garnett] The ingredients that make up Kevin Garnett?
Tablespoon of fun,
a tablespoon of seriousness,
two tablespoons of hard work,
a tablespoon of gratitude,
a teaspoon of gullibleness,
and you need two tablespoons of hate,
because I'm driven by the hate.
You know,
the more you hate on me, the more you talk shit,
the more you say I can't do something,
the more that gets me going.
I'm more motivated off the hate than anything.
[Kevin Harlan] Garnett and knocked it away!
While you're in your bed sleeping,
some people are out working.
Ah!
[sportscaster] This young man, we're gonna see a lot of him.
-[cheers and applause] -Oh! Kevin Garnett!
I like to think that I upped the level for all of us.
[sportscaster] Oh, baby! Go to work, young fella!
[Kevin] Yeah. It's crazy.
Crazy how small things turn into big things.
[indistinct clamoring]
[photographer] Really close, guys! Get closer!
[Kevin] Who is Kevin Garnett today versus the kid in '95?
Had a chip on his shoulder to prove something.
[speaker] A lot of people say there was no KG before KG.
[Kevin] For me, Magic was, like,
the potential of what can be if you have some handles.
[Matt] Yeah.
[Kevin] So then I was thinking, like,
"Man, what if Magic came from the hood?"
Like, what if, like, Magic had, like,
a DMX attitude with this shit?
Just everything I do,
I want it to be as original as it can be.
[sportscaster] A big guy playing like a guard.
[sportscaster] Well, he just crossed over
and left Chris Webber standing in his wake.
[cheers and applause]
[Kevin] How do I dominate this?
How do I take this over?
How do I own this?
We ain't hooping no more.
-[whistle blows] -[audience exclaims]
[Kevin] Throw myself in, and I'm a student.
Nothing fake about that.
Anything's possible!
That's what new things feel like to me.
I want to be challenged
to the point where it pushes me to the end.
[sportscaster] Incredible! I see you, G Money!
Shake 'em down, KG! Shake 'em down!
[cheers and applause]
[sighs]
- music fades -[exhales deeply]
[chuckling]
Hey, I'll say one thing about Hollywood, boy.
Hollywood will have you gassed.
-[laughter] -[Kevin] Straight up.
I couldn't have had none of y'all around me while I played,
'cause I was already a hype guy.
But Hollywood, everything is,
"Oh, you--oh, that was great! Great!"
[laughing] Get the fuck out of here.
sparse dramatic music
You know, it's crazy that we're here talking about,
you know, 25 years of the decision.
And I can remember thinking this.
Like, "Man, nobody really did this in a long time."
I didn't know at the time
of making a decision like this
would ignite a crazy momentum of players to come in
to basically impact the game in which we know today.
This is my way of being able to speak
to the young kid right now to understand how we got here.
How we got here with all this swag,
how we got here with all this drip.
Yeah. This is like a history lesson.
We take y'all back in time.
sparse dramatic music
I'm from Greenville, South Carolina.
I say that with pride.
When I was in seventh, eight grade,
I moved to this neighborhood called Mauldin,
which is probably 15 minutes outside of Greenville.
It was more suburban.
I will never forget this white kid named Billy.
He was probably the only white kid on our block.
Billy was a cool kid, man.
You know, he used to let us hoop.
Back in the day, only one kid had a rim at they house.
I was really practice bait, and I just got tired
of getting beat by this kid every day,
so I started practicing on my own,
I started going to the park.
And then you started to see me, like, get better.
By the time I got to eighth grade,
going to ninth grade, I was 6'6".
And I had went out and tried for varsity,
and came to kind of, you know, get my mom's permission,
and she was like, "Nah."
We were Jehovah Witness, and in Jehovah Witness,
you don't play outside of the organization.
You don't do none of that.
But this is passion.
This is something that was speaking to me.
This was something that, you know, I wanted to do,
and this had nothing to do with anybody else.
In ninth grade, I made the team.
But I kept being a basketball player from my mom
three years.
You know, I would get home from school--
and my mom did hair.
Little small garage became, like, the beauty salon.
So she would come in and out of the house at times,
and I would make sure that I wasn't nowhere to be seen,
or I had all the chores done.
Certain time, I would just take off,
and I started walking to the games.
[cheerleaders chanting]
[Kevin] And for three years, I did that.
And it was finally until my mom
was actually doing a young lady's hair
who was coming to one of the games.
She was like, "Oh, girl, you going to see your son play?"
She was like, "What?" She like, "Yeah, Kevin!
He plays for Mauldin. He good, girl!"
My mom's like, "What? Kevin don't play no basketball!"
She like, "Shit. Yes, Kevin do!"
And it was the first game my mom ever saw me play.
And I was like, "Oh shit."
She's like, "Have a good game,
but motherfucker, I'ma kill your ass when you get done!"
Like, "Oh shit. Ah!"
And then finally she came around
when she saw how passionate, committed I was to it.
And, uh, she just kinda let me be after that.
And after a while, you start to get, like, a little label
and the city start talking about you.
Going to the mall, and people running up on me, like,
"You play at Mauldin, huh?" And I was like, "Damn, what?"
You know, just walking through the mall.
And then I got the invitation to, uh, to Nike,
and that-- and that changed everything.
[producer] Scoop interview, take one.
[Scoop] I, at the time,
was doing a lot of freelance writing.
I was a journalistic prostitute.
[chuckles]
I was selling my writing to
anybody who wanted to buy it.
[announcer on PA] A senior from Hampton, Virginia,
-number 11, Allen Iverson. -[applause]
[Scoop] So I go to the Nike camp.
It was one of the most unique experiences ever.
You just saw the future
of what basketball was about to become,
and you didn't know it yet.
[announcer on PA] From Mauldin, South Carolina,
Junior, number 20, Kevin Garnett.
[Scoop] There was this 6'11" cat from South Carolina
who was getting some notoriety.
But to see him play against that talent, you're like,
"Oh, no, this cat is really good."
And what made him so special
is that he wasn't just posting cats up on the block
and just being bigger and taller
and longer than everybody.
No, he had a full skillset.
And not only did that stand out...
[announcer] Finds Garnett.
[Scoop] But his mouth stood out.
[Kevin screams]
[Scoop] Who is this dude talking this much shit,
like, nonstop?
I might have heard him before I even saw him.
You know what I mean?
Because, on the court, that's he do.
Like, he talk a lot.
The words are very explicit.
But what I saw was a great talent.
You could just see that he was gonna be special.
He was built like Kareem was
when he was in high school-- like Lew Alcindor.
Very slender.
[speaker] When this guy walks in, he this skinny.
I said, "Can you really play?" [chuckles]
And he's like, "Oh, I can play."
[announcer] William "Wolf" Nelson.
They call him Wolf.
You ask the players, "Who's your coach?" "Wolf."
[Kevin] I met my coach Wolf there, William Nelson.
He coached our team.
He was always there for advice,
always there to help me in any way that I needed it.
Wolf was that connecting bridge
between me and my mom,
with the idea that, you know, "Kevin can be something
"and he just has to, you know, be committed to this,
and he has to be, you know, two feet in."
And he got her to understand that.
suspenseful music
[Kevin] Season's over. Went in school one day,
and one of my friends, Trey, he played soccer,
so a lot of his friends were some white kids.
As we were walking by,
in Three's having a disagreement
with one of the guys,
and they jumped on him and started beating his ass.
So we jumped in, kind of, you know,
separated or whatever,
and it ended up being a big-ass fight.
A kid broke his foot,
and this kid's dad was a big deal,
so he came up to school wanting people to be arrested,
and kind of made up this roundup of all of us
and threw us--threw us in-- threw us in jail.
I got charged with lynching.
Lynching is called mob action.
Mob action is when a group attacks another group
and someone gets hurt.
It got all dismissed, but coaches quit calling,
and, you know, the phone doesn't work now.
People that was riding your coattail or was gassing you,
they was talking more shit to you now,
and people was turning their back.
What's even more crazy than this is that
three months from me getting in trouble,
I actually visited Paul Pierce out in Inglewood.
There was this AAU team called the K-Swiss All Stars,
and Paul Pierce was one of them and I was one of them.
[Paul] Where should I start?
All right, I guess, let me tell you about my AAU team.
I played for this team called the K-Swiss Pacers.
We're a Southern California- based team
between Inglewood and Compton.
Everybody was wearing Reebok, Nike, you know, Adidas.
We were sponsored by K-Swiss.
They actually made a basketball shoe.
That's how broke our team was. [laughs]
But we had a lot of hard workers.
And so every year, from, like, junior high,
we played against a team called South Coast.
We lose to them every year.
And so this is the last summer coming up.
Our K-Swiss coach, Thad McGrew,
he was like, "I got a player coming in.
You know, he's gonna play in this last tournament."
Las Vegas, the biggest tournament of the summer.
And I was like, "Who?" He was like, "Kevin Garnett."
I was like, "What?
Oh, man, this is just what we need right here."
Wow, man.
The first time I heard the name Kevin Garnett was in Las Vegas,
matching up against him
in a big-time game in the championship.
The result was him
putting my ass on the cover of "Blue Chip."
I don't know if you remember "Blue Chip" magazine.
It had him jumping over me at the free throw line
with doing a hook shot.
And the flipping caption, excuse my French, read,
"Kevin Garnett soars above Jelani McCoy
and the rest of the class of 1995."
And I'll never forget that shit in my life.
[Paul] Man, I really thought he was gonna come to LA.
I remember going to the YMCA every day,
putting in a call, like, "Man, how you doing?
"Man, what you thinking about? Let's do this, man.
"Come to the Wood. You can stay with Mom.
You know, she gonna cook for us every day."
Then, when I found out he was going to Farragut in Chicago,
I was like, "Oh, man, what could have been."
[Wolf] I was trying to recruit Kevin.
And I tell it to Kevin's mother.
And I'll never forget this. She says to me,
"Wolf, you don't have to recruit Kevin.
You already got him."
She, like, dropped him like right in my lap.
[train tracks clattering]
[Kevin] This was my only option,
so I didn't really think of anything else.
This was it.
And, you know, I didn't get to choose.
This was chosen for me.
When I got in trouble and went to jail,
my mom called Wolf and was like,
"Listen, I need Kevin to get up from down here.
"You know, if I send him up there,
would you basically watch over him?"
And that's who Wolf is.
He was more like the coach that players came to
when they didn't have a home.
He was that calming voice for the younger generation.
Been out here in a minute, man.
Ain't haven't been in Farragut since I left his muh.
Whoo!
-Where the balls at? Shit. -[Wolf] Man, man!
They ain't said nothing. Shit.
Hey, hey, I remember first time
you grabbed that ball in there. [laughs]
Hey, hey, man, hey, feel that, man.
Feel this shit right here, boy.
You hear me? You can't handle this, boy.
Hey, I give you a pounding, boy.
Boy, I'll pound-- I'll pound you.
I'll pound you right now.
You got the whole shrine in this motherfucker, right?
How the team and shit, man?
How y'all look? How we looking this year?
They a'ight. We lost the semi again, you know, but--
Man, somebody told me something, man.
"Wolf always gets it done. Always gets it done."
Let me see the gym, man.
I ain't been in the gym in a minute, man.
[Wolf laughs] Duck your head.
[Kevin] Oh, wow. This is crazy.
-Kids see this every day? -[Wolf] Every day.
[Kevin] Come in every day to that?
[Wolf] Every day.
I bet you can't even touch the top of the rim.
-Stop playing! -Oh, man.
[Wolf] He ain't gotta jump, man! Stop!
-[Kevin] Ah! -[laughter]
Kevin had been playing in the NBA for quite a while,
and then he called me.
He said, "Yeah, you see what I got last night?"
I said, "What?"
He said, "I got 28 rebounds like Wilt Chamberlain!"
-[laughter] -[Ron] "I got 28 rebounds!"
Like Stilt.
I used to tell him,
"Man, you gotta get them rebounds, man. Get in there."
He love fucking Wilt. He loves Wilt.
Always give credit to Wolf and Coach Eskridge
for bringing out the creative side of me.
Hey, man, look, you out here on this court.
Be yourself out here.
So you know, I used to come out here
and be very upset or expressive
or something might be going on off the court
that they know is fucking--
And I'll come out here and I'll just--I'll let it out.
My mom dropped them bags off
and left us with a couple dollars.
I went and got some change,
'cause there wasn't no cell phones then.
Called Wolf. He came and picked me up.
And it was like on-the-job training
on how to survive Chicago one-on-one from that point on.
This is the South Side, this is the West Side,
this is the North Side.
You gotta understand gangs.
You got Vice Lords, you got Breeds.
you got GDs, you got Latin Kings,
and you gotta know how it works.
And if you don't know this, you end up dead.
And that's when I was like, "God damn.
"We're not in South Carolina anymore.
This is real."
There's a war going on outside no man is safe from
You can run but you can't hide forever
[Scoop] Chicago has always had a unique history
when it comes to basketball
and players that come from the city.
There is no separation between mostly being Black
and being from Chicago
and being connected to the game of basketball.
I don't know what basketball is like in South Carolina.
You know, the kid is ridiculously skilled.
But if he ain't cut out here, he can forget it.
Survival of the fit, only the strong survive
Yo, we living this till the day that we die
[speaker] You can't understand Chicago basketball
until you've experienced it and lived it.
High school basketball in Chicago,
that's where you make your mark.
If you're a bad boy in college,
all right, that's cool.
You a bad boy in the pros,
that's cool.
But if you a bad boy in high school,
then you got name notoriety forever.
That's Chicago basketball.
We go to the toughest spots.
-Toughest spots. -It was proving grounds.
And these guys were straight thugs.
They hitting them, and he's dunking on them
while he getting hit in the gut.
Boom, boom, boom.
[speaker] We'd take them to some of these places where, listen,
if you call a foul,
you more than likely gonna get your ass whooped.
Don't call no fouls in here.
You gon' have to play through it.
[producer] Ronnie Fields interview, take one.
[Kevin] Ronnie was a really gung-ho city kid.
Lived really fast.
Ronnie was a grown man in high school.
Ronnie had been playing for us
when he was in elementary school.
Like, from seventh grade.
By the time he was in eighth grade,
he was dunking on grown men.
[chaotic cheers and applause]
Ronnie Fields was like
watching Michael Jordan in high school.
He could drop 50 on you, he could do a 360 dunk.
All he did was drive people crazy.
They couldn't get enough of Ronnie Fields!
[Scoop] You know, people would come to see Ronnie Fields
put on shows at the summer leagues.
Like, it's that must-see situation.
Ronnie was a superstar.
[Kevin] I had never experienced a player like Ronnie Fields.
Although he was a guard and I was a big,
he would help me on guard stuff,
and I would help him on post-up and stuff like that.
He was probably one of the better teammates
I've ever had in my life, as a player and as a friend.
[Ronnie] It's not easy, you know,
just picking up, leaving somewhere you been at,
and adapting to a different city.
You know, a lot of things could have went a different way.
Moving to a city at the time
that also is not just basketball-known
but also known for a lot of other dangerous things.
[Kevin] Our school was known for rioting.
End up ending school with a big old fight.
My first day in the cafeteria to eat lunch,
kid threw a hot dog at me.
Here, the lunch line right here, this whole shit stopped.
-I was like-- -[Wolf laughs]
So I used to sit with my back against this wall,
looking like this, so I could--you know?
It was crazy.
Hi, my name's Kevin Garnett. I graduate in the year 1995.
I plan on taking up business at the University of Syracuse.
[cheers and applause]
[Wolf] When Kevin first came to Farragut,
nobody really knew how to react.
It's been a long time since we had a kid as big as Kevin.
[indistinct chatter and laughter]
[Ronnie] We ain't never seen a guy 6'10", 6'11"--
I haven't--to do the things that KG did.
Most the bigs you see, you can see is, like, not fluent,
but they working on it.
With Kevin, you could see he already had it.
[audience exclaims]
[Jim] Jim Blaney and David Kaplan
from Proviso West High School.
This is the game, and this is the team
that everybody has been here for four days to watch.
[David] I'll tell you what, all day I was like a kid
in a candy store. Couldn't wait.
Ronnie Fields, Kevin Garnett, going up against Westinghouse.
I mean, buckle in your chin strap, put the seatbelt on.
This one's gonna be great fun.
So Farragut was always one of the better programs.
They always had good players,
and Ronnie Fields was an elite player.
And now, all of a sudden, Farragut gets that guy?
[announcer] Garnett back down yet again,
and then that's Fields cleaning up.
That one-two duo probably the
best in the country right now.
[David] The Garnett-Fields combination was unbridled joy
at all times on the court.
They knew how to play with each other.
It could be Ronnie coming down,
you think he's gonna dunk, off the backboard,
here comes Garnett behind him to slam it home.
They wanted to not only beat you,
they wanted to put a beating on you
and do it with a big smile on their face,
having as much fun as they possibly could.
And all of a sudden,
it wasn't just Farragut fans going to the game,
it wasn't the city fans going to the game.
You would see people coming from the suburbs,
north and south and west, going,
"I gotta go see these guys play!"
[speaker] I grew up in the Chicagoland.
I was in the western suburbs of Naperville.
I remember hearing my parents talk around the dinner table
about this just freak of an athlete.
We actually were able to catch a game, fight the crowd
and the people climbing the fences to see this guy play.
[announcer] And boy, the fans are into it.
[Candace] And so it was our chance to kind of claim
that we saw him before the rest of the world did.
I didn't know what was about to happen. Real shit.
But this was another level, yo. Plus Mike ain't playing?
I'm very solid with my decision
of not to play the game of basketball.
[Scoop] The fact that Jordan retired
left a door cracked for something special to happen.
As good as the Bulls were,
they still weren't fascinating.
And with Jordan, we were used to fascination.
And here comes, right at the right time,
this team from Farragut with Kevin Garnett
that brought fascination back.
Farragut became Showtime.
[announcer] Williams put it up.
"Get it out of there," says Garnett.
Washington.
Jam follow by Kevin Garnett!
-Oh, baby! -[cheers and applause]
[Wolf] What Farragut brought to Chicago that year,
there was never anything like that before.
There was nowhere that we went that wasn't sold out.
They were scalping tickets.
Tickets cost $5, people paying $50 for a ticket.
[journalist] Well, you two are quite the combination,
Kevin Garnett and Ronnie Fields.
We took over the next act in Chicago.
It wasn't baseball, it wasn't the Bears,
and it wasn't hockey.
It was the Bulls, then it was Farragut.
[David] Kevin Garnett was one the toughest kids
I'd been around. Nobody intimidated him.
And as that senior year here in Chicago rolled on,
the crowds got bigger and bigger and bigger,
to where it was like the Beatles were coming in.
And none of that affected him. He fed off that energy.
[Kevin] It was my first time feeling like a rockstar.
I never experienced basketball in this level
going through schools--
we would win, come to school the next day,
and there would be, like, a pep rally.
Like, nobody in class. Everybody cheering,
high fiving, and niggas forgot about fighting.
Everybody forgot about their set
or forgot about their gang,
and it was just--it was Farragut against everybody.
I got a lot of good play from these guys.
They've won 27 games in a row. We haven't lost since November.
[newscaster] Hey, Coach.
Before you go, can you throw a basket in the hoop?
-Me? -[newscaster] Yeah.
Yeah, just throw one in the hoop.
-[player] Yeah, yeah! -[newscaster] All right.
[chuckling] All right, Coach.
Going through the season that year,
and to win all of those games in a row--
I would try to figure out how far we could go.
would we ever lose again?
[Kevin] Wolf would encourage me
to bring the ball up and use some of my handles.
And, "Next time you drunk, scream!"
And I was like, "What?"
Wolf wanted the more personality to come out.
He wanted that animal.
"You mad? Well, show them you mad!"
[Wolf] He told me that his coach in South Carolina
was a strict coach.
He wouldn't allow him to unleash.
But when he was playing with me,
I saw that there's a lot more under the surface.
All you had to do was just let it go.
[announcer] Put it back in. There you go!
Kevin Garnett! Showtime!
You start seeing something come out of him.
And I was like, okay,
a lot of people gonna be in some trouble.
That's when I knew, like,
"All right. Oh, ain't nobody gonna beat us."
energetic upbeat music
[Kevin] Where's this at? Where we at?
That's the Final Four game.
This Dunbar, the one we almost lost.
Aw, shit. A lot of people think, like,
New York is the mecca of basketball, man.
Chicago got a toughness about the city that
it's almost like a reputation that comes with it.
[Scoop] In Chicago, city championships are often
more important than the state championship
because you could come from some bum-ass school district
in the state of Illinois
and get a chance to go down state,
where you have the biggest public school system
in the nation--
only one spot to play for a state championship.
Only one.
So winning the city is a big deal,
and no other teams
that come from other parts of the state have to go through
what you have to go through to get there.
[newscaster] Today's Public League title tilt
between Farragut and Carver.
Much-anticipated showdown between the two powers.
Garnett finishes with 32 points.
He scored 16 straight in one stretch of this game.
[announcer] Farragut beats Carver 71-62.
Their first Public League title.
William Nelson and company are off to Champaign,
and they're going in style.
First trip to Champaign, man, I have to go shopping.
I can't win in none of this old stuff.
I got--I got to throw all this away.
I mean--hey, see, I'm happy as I don't know what.
[laughs]
[David] They're in the elite eight and everyone thought,
well, now it's just a fait accompli.
Mail it in. They're gonna win the state title.
suspenseful dramatic music
[announcer] Garnett. Eight seconds.
Garnett. He's gonna shoot it. His shot...
is no good.
The rebound battle for it. They need three to tie.
Can they get it off?
Fields can't get it off! It's over!
downbeat dramatic music
[cheering]
[announcer] Players from each team congratulating the others
after a monumental upset in Champaign.
[Kevin] We go down.
We lose to Thornton at state, and it was a bunch of what-ifs
and all this other stuff that surround it.
But at the end of the day, we just lost.
[Wolf] I was too young and too inexperienced a coach.
I never went out and scouted the other team.
They had three future NFL football players
and a future NBA basketball player on the team.
These guys are studs.
Again, I was young and dumb,
but I learned a lesson the hard way.
[Ronnie] The hardest thing is knowing the next day
you didn't have another game.
We probably ain't finna go back out here
and play another high school game together.
So then I start to really feel like,
"Okay, I gotta make a decision on what I'm doing next,"
and it was all university,
it was all college at this point.
It was all about test scores.
[Wolf] After the season,
we were dealing with his recruitment.
We were trying to improve his test score.
I would talk to the college coaches
and try and maintain and keep his options open.
[sportscaster] And you heard the schools
that he's looking at right now, the top five?
Michigan's in there in a big way.
He went to see Louisville-UCLA on Sunday.
He is involved with so many different schools.
Test scores was like a nagging flea or a nagging fly.
It was just always there.
In was getting really frustrated with the process.
[announcer] This is Kevin Garnett,
our tallest of the finalists.
He told me that he definitely wants to go to college,
count on him going to college.
The only problem is right now, he doesn't have his grades.
But then, Wolf tells me that
I got chosen for the McDonald's.
I gotta go to St. Louis,
which was kind of a big deal.
That was one of the most talented McDonald's classes
all-time.
[Jelani] The East squad had Marbury, Shammgod,
Vince, Jamison,
Shareef Abdur-Rahim.
We had myself, KG, Paul, Chauncey,
"Tractor" Traylor, rest in peace.
[announcer] Kevin Garnett gets the rebound, number 21.
Right side. Goes to BJ McKie.
-Oh! -[audience exclaiming]
[Paul] He was a different player
from the time he played in that tournament
with me that summer
until the Mickey D's game, just attitude-wise.
I mean, if you go back and watch that game...
[announcer] Here's the stuff by Garnett.
[Paul] I mean, it was something every single time
he scored the ball or made a play.
[Jelani] By the time I got back to him at the McDonald's game,
there was a turn.
I'm just getting excited thinking about it right now,
'cause the fundamentals and the work ethic,
the work ethic--the sprinting, you know what I mean?
The want to win every 17, wanting to stretch
and be the first person on the floor,
last person to leave, sending messages to his peers
and the other people that watching
that he took the game of basketball very seriously.
[announcer] ...with an easy one.
What's up, Mauldin? I'm up here chilling.
What's up, dog?
Ended up being the MVP of the game
and the Most Outstanding Player.
sparse suspenseful music
But we had $200 to our name to last us for two months.
The next day, I got an eviction notice
that I was gonna get kicked out July 1st,
so I was just really stressing.
And to get my mind off of the stress,
on top of I can't pass this fucking SAT/ACT test,
my nigga said, "Let's go downtown and play some ball."
[switch clicks and echoes]
He said, "Let's go down to the Retroplex, man,
"you know, the joint down near the Hilton
where they got the really nice gym at."
I was like, "Oh, yeah. It is Saturday.
There'll be some really good games in there."
Yeah, maybe some guys from South Side
and North Side would come meet and get in there.
Mike Jordan in there.
upbeat music
And they playing in this kind of glass-filled gym,
and we're leaning on the thing, looking at him,
fogging up the glasses.
And I'm looking, and all of a sudden,
security-- doom, doom, doom--pointing.
Was like, "Hey, you. Come here."
I was like, "Me?"
And he was like, "Let big fella in."
And when he said it, I was like,
"Yo, throw my shoes. Yo, throw my shoes."
So I grab my shoes.
I'm so fucking cheesy.
So I'm seeing who in here. I see Pipp in here.
I see a couple people that I recognize.
And then Jordan was like, "Let's go."
So, we--we--we go.
And I was like-- [claps and whistles]
and I call for it. Mike threw it. Boom.
And I took a couple dribbles, and launch my shit.
Boom! And I said something, like,
to the line of "I don't know what you think this is. Shit."
And he was like, "What you say?"
And I said, "You heard me!"
I was just running off emotion, you understand?
And I don't know how I got calmed down,
[chucking] but I held my own in here.
And in the corner, I see a pair of feet.
I look, and it was Isiah Thomas.
And he was in an Avirex purple jacket,
and he had it zipped up.
He was in the corner like this.
I'm there doing "scouting" work.
'Cause now I'm part-owner
and the executive of the Toronto Raptors.
So I shout to him like I knew him.
And "Hey, Z, what's up, man? Oh, snap, man. What's up?
Oh, damn, boy! Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"I just saw you play Scottie Pippen, boy.
You can play in the league right now."
And when he said that, dog, the world stopped.
I said, "Zeke, what you say?"
He said, "Boy, do you know
you can go to the league from high school?"
I was like, "Nah."
And I just remember saying to him,
"One day you gonna be a pro.
And it might be next week." [laughs]
[Kevin] Hey, man, they still got VCRs?
-Are you serious? -[person] Hey, hey, hey!
I'd like to thank all you
for attending my press conference today.
As you all know,
May 10, I declared myself eligible for the NBA Draft.
-[Kevin] Look at your ass. -[Wolf] I know! I know!
I know! I know! I know!
[Kevin] I was nervous as shit.
I ain't never sat in front of no media.
Ain't nobody ever trained us to say certain yada yada.
[journalist] Kevin, I know you've come very close
to getting the score that you need for the ACT.
Has it been frustrating to come so close so many times,
and do you plan to take the ACT again?
Well, either way, I'ma get my degree,
no matter how long it takes.
My coach took, what, 20 years to get your degree?
[laughter]
[journalist] Kevin, do you think you're mature enough
physically or emotionally to handle the NBA?
Yeah.
It shouldn't be that hard.
'Cause moving from a small town to the big city
is a real big adjustment.
I'm up here like, "I'm finna do this.
"These niggas ain't never lived in the 'Go.
"Man, I get--I get up to walk through this motherfucker
every day."
Oh, no, the league ain't hard on us. Hell nah.
[journalist] Coach Nelson,
what kind of input have you gotten from the NBA people
regarding Kevin's likely draft status?
So I would go out and talk to different
NBA people on behalf of Kevin, 'cause I told him,
"You can't talk to an agent, so I'm gonna be your surrogate.
"I will come back and relay to you
what's--what's being said."
And so as I started to talk
with my different friends in the NBA
that I had scouted with or for, they all said, "Yeah,
"he's gonna have a workout during the pre-draft camp.
"Let's see how he does there
"when we put him through an NBA workout.
A high school kid? No chance."
And I'm chuckling to myself, "You guys have no idea."
I heard Pat Riley, like, "Come on!
"Let's get this started! Why are we even here?
"Like, what the fuck is this?
Got me watching a high school guy?"
And I was like,
"[inhales deeply] Hmm.
"You don't know why you here?
All right."
And I did the workout with that energy.
90 minutes, by myself.
dramatic hip-hop beat
90 fucking minutes by my motherfucking self.
Fuck do you think this is?
At the end of the workout,
they want to see how high I can jump,
so I was catching them mo-- dunk, boom!
[huffs] Boom!
"Go higher." Boom!
I dunked this thing maybe seven, eight times,
and then I was like, "[bellows]
"Motherfucker!
Fuck you mean, 'Why you in here?'"
[polite clap]
"Nice workout, young fella. Nice workout."
Kevin McHale comes down from the bottom of the bleachers.
Says, "Young fella, like your little jumper you got."
You know, he starts talking fast.
You ever been around Kevin McHale, he talks really fast.
"Got a nice, little jumper there.
"You know, on the face, you want to get your--
you know, when you come around, you want to--"
and I'm tired, so I'm like,
"Oh, shit, Kevin McHale's talking to me."
He was like, "Yeah, I'm talking to you.
God damn, I might draft you. Shit."
Might have caught four words out of the whole exchange,
but holy shit.
With the fifth pick in the 1995 NBA Draft,
the Minnesota Timberwolves select Kevin Garnett
from Farragut Academy in Chicago.
[cheers and applause]
[Kevin] And David Stern said,
"And with the fifth pick in the 1995 Draft,
the Minnesota Timberwolves select..."
and everything else went silent.
I didn't hear nothing.
I just remember my agent kicking me under the stage.
Says, "Showtime." I said, "What?"
[commentator] The high school kid is the number five pick
in the NBA Draft.
[Paul] "Kevin Garnett is going to the league."
I'm like, "What?" Nobody ever heard of this!
[commentator] Not only the shot blocking, rebounding,
he runs the floor like the wind
for a player that size.
[Paul] You got all these established stars
getting drafted.
You know, Joe Smith out of Maryland,
Sheed, Stackhouse,
and then you got this skinny kid
out of Farragut High School go in the lottery.
Well, that was the cover. "Ready or Not."
That was the big question.
[Isiah] Kevin McHale calls me up a week before the draft,
and he goes, "Are you gonna draft him?"
And I said, "If he's at seven, I'm going to take him."
And he said, "Do you think I should draft him at five?"
It's between he and Stoudamire.
I say, "That's what I have on my board also."
Standing by now is Isiah Thomas of the Toronto Raptors.
[Isiah] I couldn't lie to McHale.
[chuckles] So he ended up taking him,
and I ended up with Stoudamire.
And when I'm getting ready in the mirror,
Wolf calls my room, says, "Man, I just got your test scores.
"Man, your test scores came in, man.
We got the score, baby! What we doing?"
[Wolf] Told him, I said,
"Got something for you." [laughs]
So he was like, "What?" "Your scores came in."
dramatic orchestral music
Like, "You know,
I'm in the middle of doing shit right now."
[laughs]
I like, "Well, you got--
just wanna let you know you passed."
Man, fuck them scores, man.
I'm going to the school of hard knocks.
[applause]
But yeah, save them shit, so I can show my kids one day,
you know what I'm saying?
I finally killed that little gnat and that little fly.
I got him outta here.
[applause]
[Matt Winer] Now to the critical next step
to being named to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The next nominee is a South Carolina native.
He would become the first person in 20 years
to be selected by an NBA team directly from high school.
You know him as KG or the Big Ticket:
-Kevin Garnett. -[applause]
Kevin...
what would that kid who made the leap to the NBA
in 1995 think of this?
He'd probably think that this was pretty awesome right here.
[laughter]
-It is. -Yeah.
The Hall of Fame is something that
you don't really think about,
you don't really dream about, it just happens.
I'm more than-- I'm more than honored for this.
This is over my head.
This is--this is one of the more over, um--
ooh, get it together.
This is more--one of the more overwhelming situations
I've ever been in. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
I had to do "Regis & Kathie Lee,"
and I wore this American-- [laughs]
I wore this American jacket.
I don't even know why I wore that,
but it felt, like, fitting.
I didn't even know what to wear.
Well, congratulations. This is some story.
Hasn't been done in 20 years.
-How old are you? -I just turned 19.
-[Regis] Oh you just turned 19? -Yeah.
Well, so what are you gonna do with all your money?
I don't know, um...
I haven't got it yet, so I can't really...
[laughter and applause]
-plan for it, actually. -[applause]
Nobody really expected that,
somebody to come right out of high school.
It wasn't illegal. Just nobody was doing it.
At the time,
I wasn't even aware that it had happened before.
Obviously, learning the history,
found out there's, you know, people before him,
but it hadn't happened in 20 years.
[Scoop] The first thing that came to my mind
was Moses Malone, 'cause I'm old enough to remember
Moses did it out of Virginia,
and he went straight to the ABA.
He went to the Utah Stars.
And then Bill Willoughby came around.
And then Darryl Dawkins went into it.
You know, the opening was there.
It's not like there were any rules or laws
preventing this from happening for 20 years.
Just nobody had done it. Nobody had been bold enough.
I think he was the perfect person for it.
When you think about his body type,
his skillset, his athleticism, you put all that together,
why wouldn't you go straight into the NBA?
[indistinct chatter]
[Kevin McHale] The transition when I went to the NBA,
well, it knocked me on my rear end.
It was like, "Wow, this is a huge, huge transition."
So knowing that, I went in with Kevin
trying to really spend some time with him
and understand that he's gonna go through
the same thing that I went through,
maybe even more, maybe even magnified more.
[Sam] We had tough practices.
You know, we were tired of losing,
and we felt like we needed to be a physical team.
So Kevin, coming in as
a rookie, 19 years old,
when he would come to the hole,
we'd put him on the ground.
My first time going to the hole,
Doug West gave me a real hard foul.
We jumped up and we started fighting.
Maybe 30 minutes later, a rebounding drill,
me and another guy, we get into it.
Boom, same thing.
I want them to know that I would fight,
and I didn't give a fuck.
And if they wanted to go to war, we can do that.
After the second practice,
Sam Mitchell came and knocked on my door.
I opened up through the chain, like, "What?"
And he was like, "Man, open the door!"
I was like, "Man, what you want?"
Slammed the door his face-- doom!
He was super patient. He knocked on the door.
I let him in.
And we had, like, a three-hour conversation.
After that practice, it was a lot of tension in the air.
Guys were angry.
And I did not want him to walk away
thinking that we were against him.
Hold up. You do what I want. Where my boy at?
[Jelani] So when you're a young player in the NBA,
you have to have a support system.
You not prepared for this,
your family isn't gonna be prepared for this,
even if they do have some sense of financial literacy.
[Kevin] Funny part. [chuckles]
I didn't believe in banks.
For my first couple years, we brown bagged it.
I had like 2, 3 million under my mattress.
Uh, yeah, then I learned about direct deposit.
energetic orchestral music
[Kevin McHale] I'm very impatient
when it comes to winning and losing.
I do not like to lose.
If something inside you isn't torn apart when you lose,
then you're a loser.
But if that something inside you hurts,
and you say to yourself,
"What can I do to stop this from happening again?"
then you have a winner, eventually, that will come out.
[Howard] I'm not sure you could have mapped out a better path
for Kevin Garnett
than to have Kevin McHale and Flip Saunders.
Flip, just because of the touch he had.
He had this ability to communicate with players,
to get the best out of them.
But then having Kevin McHale, an actual living legend,
who's one of the great all-time bigs,
who had won championships, that mattered a lot.
You know, we're gonna probably set up situations
for Kevin to know a lot of different people
and feel comfortable with a lot of different people.
And if he wants to get a home-cooked meal,
they all come out to my house.
[Sam] Kevin McHale created an environment for KG to grow.
He understood the pressure that KG was under,
he understood what it took to be a great player,
he understood the level of work
that you had to put in to maintain that play.
It set the tone for his career from day one.
[Howard] The Timberwolves that Garnett arrives to,
they're an expansion team in a cold weather city.
They've averaged 21 wins a season.
They're not good.
That was NBA Siberia at that time.
They badly needed a talent
who could become the face of that franchise.
[sportscaster] Now Kevin Garnett,
the high schooler,
now in the NBA, is on the floor.
Hard to believe.
Gugliotta trying to save. Does.
Garnett gets his first NBA basket.
[Kevin] Rookie night, I didn't know really what was going on.
You know, you have a sense, but the actual reality
of what's going on doesn't hit you
till two or three days later, till you're, like, "Holy snap."
old-school hip-hop beat
[sportscaster] A three in his Target Center debut.
[Kevin screaming]
[sportscaster] Feeds it off to Garnett for the dunk.
Oh, how about this block?
How about the lob? And it works!
[sportscaster] That's a great play!
[sportscaster] Garnett has done
a little bit of everything so far.
There's never a time where you get the feeling he's saying,
"Wait a second,
I was playing Chicago high school basketball last year."
[Kevin] We was playing Chicago on a back-to-back,
when my high school teammate Ronnie Fields
was in a car accident.
[doctor] Ronnie just came out of surgery
and he's in recovery, and we all feel good
about the fact that the surgery is over with,
and he's moving his hands and his legs.
[Ronnie] At the time of that accident, that was the year
that I was gonna probably come out as well.
If the scouts like what they see,
or even my performance on the court,
whether I go pro or not.
So you're thinking about it. It's in the back of your mind.
Yeah, it's in the back of my mind.
soft dramatic music
And I'll never forget when I was laying there,
the only thing I do is hear a voice.
And then I finally opened my eyes, and I look up,
it was him.
Right when I landed, I went to go see him.
He was in the greatest mood.
He was like, "Hey, you got my tickets and shit?
"Yeah, I need my tickets. You know, I got two girls
I'm trying to take to the game."
I was like, "What are you talking about?"
I'm the one supposed to feel, you know, like,
maybe upset and all this stuff.
But I really wasn't as upset as he was, because he was like,
"I'ma just stay here. You want me to stay here?"
I said, "Man, you--no. You got a game."
[sportscaster] Kevin Garnett's high school teammate,
Ronnie Fields, we wish him the best,
but Kevin Garnett had a little tribute to him.
[Kevin] The excitement that night
was playing Michael Jordan and the Bulls.
But after I seen Ronnie,
it was about representing Ronnie.
I felt like I was playing for him.
And I came in there with that energy.
[sportscaster] Instead, it's Garnett.
Oh, what a slam from Kevin Garnett!
[Ronnie] Laying in bed, trying to watch the game,
not thinking about, like, how messed up I was,
but how proud I was of him, and the moment of, like,
-"Man..." -[Kevin screaming]
"Hopefully I get a chance to join him one day."
You know, with Ronnie's situation right now,
it's critical, so I think everybody--
every basketball player out there just thanking the Lord
for every God-given talent they have.
Hmm.
No, I couldn't imagine that.
That would be death to me.
Kevin Garnett was spectacular tonight.
We're gonna clear a little bit of room for Kevin
to come on in right about now.
Good job, baby. Good job.
Hey, we didn't want to make Kevin wait too long,
as Kevin Garnett's just gonna put the headset on.
A great finish to tonight's game.
Like, we won, came out, had to do some press.
And there's this kid sitting in my seat.
And he's like, "What's up? What's up, dog?
I'm Kobe. Kobe Bryant. How you doing?"
I was like, "What's up, man? You're in my seat."
And he was like, "Oh, my fault. My fault."
And I was like, "Kobe Bryant?"
I was like, "All right. What's up, man?"
"I'm coming out this year. I watched you play, man.
What's it like, man?"
And, you know, the guys are around,
so they sitting here watching us talk.
So they like, "Tell him what's it like, big fella."
I was like, "Shit, this shit hard as shit.
I mean, but your dad was in the league, so..."
"No, fuck that. No, I want to hear it from you."
We just sat there and we talked for like an hour.
And I said, "I'll see you on top."
He said, "Nah, you gonna see me next year. I'm coming."
The National Basketball Association draft of new talent
is coming up on Wednesday.
This year's crop is younger than ever,
and includes a record number of players
who either didn't finish college
or didn't even get there.
[Ernie Johnson] A lot of kids coming out.
Childhood a not-too-distant memory for some of these guys.
So KG comes out in '95, and Kobe Bryant takes notice,
Jermaine O'Neal takes notice.
These guys now see there's a path there.
Then, after that, you see McGrady,
you see Dwight Howard, you see LeBron.
He created them.
That's a product of Kevin Garnett.
All greats who came out of high school.
Opened up the floodgates.
The Milwaukee Bucks select Stephon Marbury
-from Georgia Tech University. -[cheers and applause]
[Kevin] My junior year in high school,
I get a call at my mom's house.
Ring. About 10:00.
[clicks tongue] "Can I speak to Kev?"
Steph called me, and we just talked for like six hours.
Steph was on some, like, "Yo, let's go to college together.
You see the Fab Five?" We was on some, like,
let's have our own thing, kind of like that.
So when he got drafted by Milwaukee, Flip was like,
"Yo, I'm trading Ray for him. You with that?"
I was like, "Yeah."
So we've had the ceremonial switch of hats
over there, at the trade,
Stephon Marbury to Minnesota for Ray Allen,
who goes to Milwaukee.
And Marbury likes Kevin Garnett.
Now he goes to Minnesota.
It was perfect, 'cause now I had a real friend.
I'm just, I'm so happy to be here.
I'm getting to play with one of my friends.
you know, when you got a good point guard
and a great big man, you can start something.
You can start a good franchise, like Magic and Kareem.
Here comes the brand new flava in ya ear
Time for new flava in ya ear
I'm kicking new flava in ya ear
Mack's the brand-new flava in ya ear
[Howard] Stephon Marbury was your classic
New York point guard coming out.
Flashy, brash, full of bravado.
[sportscaster] To Kevin! Oh, baby!
[Howard] He and KG were the perfect fit.
On day one, you could see
this could be one of the all-time great duos.
[sportscaster] Two-man game. Garnett. Big-time jam!
[sportscaster] Marbury the other way.
[Matt] They were both just high-energy guys.
Their ability just to raise the level of competition
and raise the level of energy
based off their youth and enthusiasm,
was something special in itself.
[Paul] I mean, who didn't want to watch Stephon Marbury,
a New York kid with the handles,
highly-touted since he was a sixth-grader.
Then you had KG out of high school.
It was just like, they could be together a long time
running the NBA.
[Howard] Suddenly, those two were not just the stars
of the Timberwolves franchise,
they were stars of the new NBA.
They were on nightly highlight reels on SportsCenter.
Right off the bat, there was a famous/infamous
Marbury and Garnett "ESPN Magazine" commercial.
"ESPN Magazine" is gonna be phat.
But please, no swimsuits.
Yeah, no bikinis.
No one-pieces.
-No thongs. -None of that.
[both] All nude.
Tastefully done.
[chuckles] We didn't even practice that.
We just jumped right into it.
That shit took seven minutes. It was on everything.
And we was, like, the new it.
upbeat music
[Matt] I remember seeing that classic cover on "SLAM"
with Kevin and Marbury.
It was that complete crossover between basketball and hip hop.
You seen jewelry, you seen the do-rags,
and you seen people that started
reflecting people from neighborhoods.
[Metta] It was more of a thing where I want to be like that.
I don't only want to make it, but I also want that lifestyle.
[chuckles] I want that chain, you know?
That cover was something that validated,
"Hey, express yourself. Show them what you got."
You know, I remember Iverson wearing the big jewels,
and KG always had those big earrings.
This was when we first got, like, the visual aspect
that rappers wanted to be athletes
and athletes wanted to be rappers.
-[Kevin grunting] -[basketball bouncing]
music fading
Yeah.
[basketball bouncing]
[Kevin grunts]
Could spend days in here.
I can quarantine in a place like this.
-[net swishes] -[cheers and applause]
-[sportscaster] The Killa! -[Kevin] The Killa!
-[chuckles] -I'm the bite-sized--
I'm the bite-sized version of KG. What's up, boy?
Soulja boy. How you been?
Man, I'm all good.
Good to see you, man.
Everybody in here you have on the wall is huge
in the history and the making of the history of the NBA.
I even got Hakeem teaching Shaq...
[Kevin] I see that!
-[Snoop] How to go big. -[Kevin] I see that.
[Snoop] 'Cause that was his teacher right there.
-[Kevin] Right. -[Snoop] And see Dr. J,
the reason why I like him, 'cause I play in Chucks.
[Kevin] Facts.
[Snoop] Can't play in no regular basketball shoes.
I gotta play in these, man.
[Kevin] You gotta play in some Chucks.
Come on, man, that's OG-style.
[Kevin] I love it. Fucking asses got Snooped.
-[Snoop] Oh, my God. -Do you remember this?
Lord, this probably one of the most unprofessional shits
-I've ever done. -[laughing]
We get to motherfucker Toronto.
"Yo, Snoop in town! Snoop playing tonight."
Like, "For real? Oh, hell no. We gotta get some tickets."
So we go to the show.
The show banging. Snoop kill that shit.
Dog, I think we hung out till like--
Nigga, the sun came up.
I looked out my window, nigga, I said,
"These niggas still here, and the sun is rising."
Man, listen. We played the Toronto Raptors at noon.
Halftime. I'm leading the league in rebounds.
I have no rebounds.
Flip says, "God damn it, guys!
"These Toronto fans, they get to see you once!
"God damn it, come here and play like shit?
"You motherfuckers hanging out with Snoop?
-You fucking got Snooped!" -[laughing]
Yo, he cursed everybody out.
That shit was so bomb for us, 'cause, like,
you gotta understand, like,
when we get to hang out with professional athletes,
it makes us feel like professional athletes.
A lot of us think that we y'all,
and a lot of y'all feel like y'all us
when y'all listening to that music.
It's just you take on that spirit of "This is what I am."
Right, right.
old school hip-hop beat
[Kevin] A lot of the music you listen to,
believe it or not,
is translated in the moves you make.
Mm.
When in listen to soulful R&B music,
you're a lot more finesse.
When you listen to music with bass, and that hit?
[imitating intense music]
You hear that shit,
and that shit hits your veins, mmm, you play like that.
Wow.
It's not--I'm not finna finesse this nigga,
I'm finna go through this nigga.
-I'm finna go over this nigga. -[Snoop chuckling]
I ain't listening to no Stephanie Mills
-before I play Charles Barkley. -[Snoop laughs]
Hip hop and basketball go hand-in-motherfucking-hand.
That's exactly what that is.
It was always some connection,
and that was before it got like it is now.
That's when it was, like,
a chosen few niggas would fuck with hip-hop,
'cause they didn't want to use their job or be associated
with the shit that we did, because at that time,
the NBA wasn't as lenient as they is now,
with niggas fucking with, you know, real motherfuckers.
'Cause the shit that we do, y'all can't do.
But back then,
y'all couldn't be next to the niggas that did it.
Right.
So do you think now they got leverage
with the Black Lives movement?
I don't know, man. I actually thought for a second
that the players had momentum to where,
if they could've took a stance...
-Together. -All of them together,
Said, "No, we not playing,"
that they could have actually went on Capitol Hill
and started a conversation.
-A real one. -A real one.
And started talking about police reform,
coming up with new programs for the Black community.
You know what I'm saying? Like, also real reparation.
And I thought that, you know,
just falling in line actually didn't really help anything.
Like, it ain't just us, dog.
[Snoop] But--but--but you--but you gotta say this to yourself:
if you, young KG, and you in the league and you playing,
and you put in this position, do you step out?
Because when the majority say, "Nigga, we going."
You ain't making no money."
That's the first thing they gonna throw in your face.
I would have had to go up to Capitol Hill on my own.
I couldn't have just sat back
and just, what, did nothing or chill at the crib?
It's an uncomfortable conversation, Snoop.
It is! But, like--
Niggas had--niggas--right! The whole shit!
You know what I'm saying? It's--
We used to it,
because we always be in uncomfortable situations.
We--our ears is trained to hear it.
It don't offend us.
But the average motherfucker hear that shit
and get all rubbed the wrong way!
Man, let sports shut down. Let products not move.
Let motherfuckers stop buying shit.
-Now it's a conversation! -[Kevin] I'm saying, yo!
dramatic ambient music
[Jeanelle] Hey, KG, you're not gonna remember me,
but I used to be your ball girl.
That's what up.
Way back in the day. It's good to see you again.
[Kevin] Good to see you, yo.
-How you doing? -[Jeanelle] I'm doing well.
-You all right? You all right? -I'm doing well.
I'm lead caretaker of all this stuff,
so if you need to know anything about anything, I got you.
[Kevin] You know, seeing George Floyd
in that situation, I saw myself.
I saw my son, I saw my friends.
This a shock to the world,
this ain't no shock to no people of color.
This has always been like my sanctuary.
Two months, this will be frozen solid,
where you can drive a car on it.
You know, this is kind of where I've collected
all of what I've accomplished while being in Minnesota.
It makes me think about the visions, the goals.
This is a special room for me.
I call it the hall of memories.
I thought this was a pretty cool picture of me and Timmy.
This pretty much sums up, you know,
him and I [chuckling]
in the early days, and the early antics.
The funny part about this is I'm able to see people's faces,
and they're reacting to the game,
which is stuff you don't see during the game.
I'ma tell y'all something. Put countless hours into this.
Basically have no life. This is your life.
And everything's totally circled around
you getting better in basketball or you growing.
And that's all serious stuff.
When you're able to relax, play amongst others,
joke, be yourself around others being themselves,
that's what I miss about basketball.
This is what I miss.
energetic saxophone music
[sportscaster] For the first time since 1960,
the NBA Playoffs have hit the Twin Cities.
This is the scene outside the Target Center,
where Timberwolves fans are all geared up
for game number three of the Western Conference Playoffs.
Was our first time that we actually went to the playoffs.
We was up against a very veteran team,
and that being the Houston Rockets.
dramatic hip-hop beat
The city, which is usually a football town,
and now we have this new basketball energy
just erupting in the city.
[sportscaster] You're seeing, for these T-wolves, no quit.
You never know what can happen at the end of a game.
Probably not gonna get this one done,
but it'll help them in the future.
-[horn blasts] -And that's your ball game.
The Houston Rockets sweep the Minnesota Timberwolves
three games to none.
[Kevin] Charles Barkley pulled Steph and I at the end,
and I didn't even want to hear that shit.
I was livid.
He grabbed by my arm, and I jerked away.
He was like, "Hey, come here, god damn it!
"Listen! Y'all gotta take this ass-whooping and learn from it.
"This is what gonna make you hungry.
"You gonna be back here a million times!
What you gonna do when you come back here?"
And he walked off.
And that--and that echoed in my head the whole summer.
peaceful music
I remember being in Jamaica.
I went there for the first time,
and I was just relaxing, actually just chilling.
Got up, and remember having a bowl of fruit.
And I had the fruit in my lap.
I whip up the "USA Today,"
and I open it up, and in the sports section,
it had "Garnett rejects $103 million."
Kind of took me a minute. I was like, "Garnett what?"
And I sat up.
And the bowl of fruit went on the paper.
I just remember, like, "God damn."
And I was reading standing up.
I read half the article. Pfft.
I was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no."
I got out of Jamaica and got back to Minneapolis.
Found myself in, like, a shitstorm of just negotiating.
It was the first time that I had to speak on my business
without knowing the full of the business,
and it was super uncomfortable.
But, you know, it was what I needed to go to the next step.
Because what I didn't know is that I would be the bullseye.
Well, the surreal world of sports
got a little bit more insane this week.
[newscaster] Kevin Garnett has become the highest-paid player
in the history of professional sports.
[person] When KG's six-year,
$126 million contract hit at that time,
it was unprecedented.
This is a young high school kid
that just got over $120 million
to play basketball.
[Jelani] Changed everything.
Changed the NBA, changed what the deals look like.
It changed, you know, the transparency
of how much money the owners were really making.
At the end of day,
if they could pay one person $126 million?
There's no max salary back then.
The concept doesn't exist, the phrase doesn't exist,
the rule doesn't exist,
so the Timberwolves do what it takes.
They spent $126 million over six years
in an extension to keep Kevin Garnett.
The league flips out.
There are people here who are enraged by the salary figure,
particularly because he had turned down a deal
for 103 million.
Garnett's not a household name, obviously, there.
-[commentator] Right. -I mean, is he worth it?
There's no way this owner's going to make any money
in the next five or six years.
[Scoop] Kevin Garnett and his team,
in turning down $103 million,
made a very smart business decision,
because they wound up getting 126.
And isn't that what America's all about?
Making the smartest business deal?
The racist tone they set with saying,
"Who the fuck are you,
nigga, to turn down $103 million?"
That was the narrative that consistently was put out
when Kevin turned that money down.
[Howard] The league in '98 decides,
"We've gotta get control over this.
"We've got way too much money going out to players,
"and sometimes, in the case of a Kevin Garnett,
really young players."
So the leagues wants to create
what we now know as the max contract.
Obviously, this is not going to be very appealing
to the players and the players' union,
so there's a shutdown.
It was a direct response to Kevin Garnett's contract
that, "Okay, we're gonna shut this thing down,
and we're gonna hold it against the players."
The owners are almost forcing you
to look at Kevin Garnett and be like,
"You did this." [scoffs]
As players, we like, "Well, shoot,
"you have the ability to pay this kid that much?
Well, what y'all making? What's the value of this franchise?"
People don't never talk about that, though.
These proposals,
combined with the totality of our other proposals,
are simply unacceptable to them.
You know, under no circumstance are we gonna fall on the sword,
and under no circumstance are we gonna give away the house.
The negotiations are tough.
David Stern, as commissioner of the NBA,
Billy Hunter,
executive director of the players' union,
these guys are both willing to go the distance
to defend their particular constituencies.
Now, you probably noticed
we don't have NBA highlights tonight.
They're still busy talking about,
let's see, Larry Bird exemption,
salary caps, soft caps, hard caps, baseball caps,
league-mandated bonus protection for those players
not held under the free agency exemption program
based on the previous year's revenue,
but not covered under the rookie salary cap
that was extended--
Thank you so much. Sound like a lawyer.
-Or worse. -[chuckles]
How's the weekend looking?
So the lockout lasts about 6 1/2 months.
The league got what it wanted. It got max salaries.
But there was an absolute cap.
There was gonna be a new era for the NBA.
Why do you need me to be so scared?
[speaker] It was a new franchise.
There were a lot of new NBA fans.
It's game time.
[speaker] And it was a youthful team.
But as I step in to the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1999,
all of the best-laid plans are starting to come undone.
[journalist] Your contract for the time being
didn't have a lot of room for negotiation
'cause of the cap,
but looking at what's happening on the market
right now, are you as blown away as you rest of us are
with the kind of money that's being paid?
Yeah, I am. I mean, it's out there for us.
I think that the players who get that amount of money
are the great players.
[speaker] We do not have as much money in this franchise
as a New York or an LA or a Chicago.
It does mean we're going to
have to look at the other players on the team
and how much we have to pay them,
and so it's all this tied together.
tense music
[Sean] This is the next Stockton and Malone.
But you could tell something just wasn't right
and Steph wanted out.
And one late night, he was gone.
[radio host] I'm still trying to digest
a massive, massive trade.
Stephon Marbury is going back home to New Jersey,
the New York area.
[radio host] It's going to be interesting to see
how Kevin Garnett is motivated
without his pal, Stephon Marbury.
downbeat piano music
[Howard] They'd become this phenomenal young duo,
and they're on the rise,
but Garnett is up here in salary
and Marbury's gonna be just about here.
They were on the verge of
I think, doing something special.
But the way the salary cap was structured,
Steph not being able to get that kind of money,
it threw a wrench in the plan.
But there's always gonna be the what-ifs,
how fun those guys could have been to watch for years.
[Isiah] The industry is set up
to pit teammates against each other
so we can write stories and have another business entity
where we can all make money.
And unfortunately, it takes advantage of the young
who are not equipped to deal with the hegemonic forces
that's working them, and they can't even see it.
[Kevin] For a while, man,
I used to always wonder what it would have been like
if Steph and I would've have actually stayed together,
but that wasn't the plan.
[Sam] So as tough as it was losing Steph,
it was the best thing for us, because it brought clarity.
There was no more conversation about who team it was.
There no more conversation about
who gets the ball at the end of the game.
Without a doubt, 100%, this was Kevin Garnett's team.
[Kevin] I get the name of the names: the Big Ticket.
That mean there ain't nothing else playing tonight.
-You it. -[cheers and applause]
[sportscaster] Duncan and Kevin Garnett!
what a matchup we're gonna have tonight at power forward.
It was a special time for that position,
and I remember the power forward matchups
were some of the best matchups to watch.
[Howard] The power forward position,
especially in the Western Conference at that time,
was absolutely stacked.
You had Chris Webber coming west to the Sacramento Kings.
You had Rasheed Wallace
coming west to the Portland Trailblazers.
You had Tim Duncan with the Spurs.
These guys were all studs.
[Paul] You think about the power forward of the '90s
and early 2000s,
you think about these big, strong, physical cats.
You ain't thinking about no wiry, 7-foot...
[chuckling] skinny guy at the four.
[Matt] Traditionally, power forwards
are back-to-the-basket-type guys.
Down low, you and the five man take turns eating.
But then KG comes along, and he's someone
that could really start handling the ball like a guard
and making decisions like a guard,
and could put you in a blender down below
with that Kevin McHale footwork he learned,
and even stretching it out further.
[sportscaster] That'll work out fine.
[Paul] When Kevin took the game outside the paint,
it was like, "What's going on? How we 'posed to defend this?"
Now this kid is coming with some finesse.
He's pump-faking me now, putting it on the ground.
Big men can't move they feet with this guy.
[Metta] KG changed the power forward position
with the flair and the style.
You started to see personality in the position.
See how KG move, see how he bop,
you see his jab step?
That's all rhythm, that's all flow.
[speaker] Defensively, I don't know
if we really seen someone like him,
a guy that could switch one through five and guard anybody.
And when I say anybody, anybody.
[Isiah] "I can do it all. I can bring it up the court.
"I can shake you, I can dish you,
"I can dunk on you,
"I can get back, I can block that shot.
"And guess what, I can go to the line
at the end, make two free throws, if you need that, too."
He does whatever it takes to win a basketball game.
He just a motherfucker.
Can I say that? [chuckles]
-[cheers and applause] -[Kevin inaudible]
[Matt] Was there someone that you loved,
you knew that motherfucker could back it up
and he was gonna talk it to you?
Believe it or not, y'all, Tim Duncan.
Shout out to Timmy.
[Matt] Mm, mm.
Tim Duncan, people would not see him verbally saying stuff,
because he wouldn't talk in sentences.
[laughter]
Timmy would hit you in phrases.
-"Got you." "Ooh." "Almost." -[laughter]
This the worst right here.
-"Nice try." -[laughter]
[sportscaster] Rebound Garnett, to Brandon.
Great pass. There's Malik for the necktie.
[Kevin] Right before the trade of Steph,
Malik got cut from Detroit, and we picked him up.
I had watched Malik when he was younger at St. John's
and he was kind of one of my favorite players
to watch in the Big East.
When we got Malik, we were all excited.
Never did I know that the reason KG wore number 21
was because Malik Sealy was his favorite player.
[sportscaster] Here comes Sealy. A three.
-[horn blasting] -[cheers and applause]
[sportscaster] Oh! He got it! Minnesota wins!
I mean, we've had so many tough losses,
and we played so well down towards the end,
it would have been a pity to have not come away
with this win, but we're happy with the win.
[Sam] God put people in your life for different times
and different reasons.
He taught KG how to embrace who he was.
KG life blossomed when Malik joined the team.
Malik knocked it down! Enough said!
You ain't gotta ask me no more questions,
'cause I ain't got no more answers!
Hi, Mom!
[cheers and applause]
My birthday was a blur.
Go to dinner, had a good time there,
we left.
And we were just outside talking, like,
for, like, two, three hours.
And I just remember getting home and just, you know,
the TV kind of took me to sleep,
and I turned the TV off.
It seemed like I had just hit the pillow or something,
my aunt-- my aunt kicked my door.
Doom. She came in, she was like,
"Kev, get up. Get yo' ass up."
And I was kind of looking at her a while,
like, "What are you talking about?"
She was like, "Man, something happened to Malik."
[words echoing] "Something happened to Malik."
Felt like a dream, 'cause I could hear her echoing,
and I was, like, going back to sleep,
and I was like, "What?"
Timberwolves guard, NBA veteran Malik Sealy,
died as a result of a head-on car collision
in suburban Minneapolis.
His sports utility vehicle was hit by a pickup truck
which was going the wrong way on a highway.
Blood tests show the driver
had a blood alcohol level of 0.19,
nearly twice the legal limit.
Sealy was returning
from teammate Kevin Garnett's birthday party
at the time of the crash.
pensive vocalizing
[Flip] Someone who believed that, you know,
the team is more important than the individual.
And I think that he stood for what we were this past year.
And um...
he'll be missed, but never forgotten.
[softly] Sorry.
- Brave - Brave
Brave
[cheers and applause]
[Kevin] And all these things start happening, man.
And I just-- I just pumped the brakes.
I didn't want to necessarily
make any more friends on the team,
because it seemed like everything was leaving me,
and so I became distant.
I wasn't the same. I wasn't the same Kevin.
[Sam] I don't know if we ever really recovered.
It was always like there was this hole in our heart
and in our soul.
That group, we just-- we couldn't close it.
[sportscaster] Five seconds, and that'll do it.
Congratulations to Gregg Popovich
and the San Antonio Spurs.
They have dismissed the Minnesota Timberwolves.
[sportscaster] Garnett with the misfire,
and the Blazers have it
as Minnesota goes down in the first round.
[sportscaster] The supporting cast is not there.
[sportscaster] Nowitzki.
That should do it.
sportscaster] That's it. The Los Angeles Lakers
have captured their 13th consecutive playoff series.
Kevin Garnett is just heartbroken right now.
[grunting]
[Kevin screams]
[Kevin] What drives me crazy at the end of the year,
is that I'm here working my butt off,
and it goes unappreciated, you know what I mean?
[Kevin panting]
You know, I work hard,
so I expect the best results, you know?
Good work, Kev.
Good work, baby. Good fucking work.
I guess that's why I go so crazy...
Good fucking work.
When we don't really go far in the playoffs
or we have setbacks.
I'm working for you, 'Sota.
I'm working for you, I'm working for you.
I'm working for you, 'Sota! I'm working for you!
tense downbeat music
[Sean] Kevin Garnett had been granted the nickname
the Big Ticket.
By the time I got there,
it had had that secondary meaning attached to it,
because the contract had become a burden,
because the rules had changed around it.
So suddenly, the Big Ticket was now
preventing the Timberwolves
from adding pieces around him.
And I realized, even as a very young announcer,
this Big Ticket thing is a problem.
[Kevin] Getting put out of the playoffs
seven straight times was becoming...
[clicks tongue] Like this dark cloud.
I wanted it so bad, it just drove me crazy.
And I start challenging management
to have better players.
[Sam C] Michael Jordan was gonna buy
the Milwaukee Bucks.
The salary he wanted to cut was my salary.
Ernie Grunfeld, who was the general manager of the team,
called me and said, "Listen, I'm gonna make a move.
Could you play in Minnesota?"
So I get to Minnesota.
Couple days later, Flip called me and said,
"Sam, do you know Sprewell?"
I'm like, "I do know Sprewell."
I call Spree.
I say, "Spree, man, I'm in Minnesota right now.
You should come."
Couple hours later, trade done.
So now you got me, Spree, and KG.
[Kevin] I met Sam and Spree at a perfect time in my life.
If anybody knows Sam Cassell, he's infectious.
In a good way,
he's gonna bully his personality on top of you.
He used to do this little thing that used to drive me crazy.
He used to always grab Spree and go,
" My buddy
My buddy, My buddy and me"
And Spree and him do that shit, and everybody start laughing.
And he say, "Come on, sing it, me and you."
And I'm like, "Man, I'm not going with that shit, man."
And he used to come over there,
"I want a hug, motherfucker! My buddy! "
And the whole room be like, "Ah, he got you!"
And I fucking hated it.
But he used to relax me.
He made me a better player by making me uncomfortable,
do uncomfortable things.
I like to think that '03-'04
was the first time I got off of
being so stern and so serious
and started to actually enjoy a little bit
and let go a little bit.
[David] It's the first time that the Timberwolves
had the best record in the Western Conference.
The first time--
the first time that the Timberwolves
had the Most Valuable Player in the NBA.
[cheers and applause]
Congratulations,
2003-2004 NBA MVP,
-Kevin Garnett. -[cheers and applause]
swelling orchestral music
[Kevin] I felt like I won that award
for everybody in that state and everybody in those jerseys
and all those fans that was in those seats.
But I had a bigger goal in mind,
and it was the NBA Larry O'Brien Trophy.
upbeat hip-hop beat
[Sam C] 2004 Western Conference,
we were the number one seed.
That was a big deal
for the Minnesota Timberwolves organization.
First time ever, you know, they was number one seed.
For a expansion team, that's--that's huge.
[Kevin] Sam tell me before we even start the series,
"We getting out the first round."
[sportscaster] Get out the cold beverages.
Minnesota's Timberwolves are going to the second round
of the playoffs.
This year is totally different from the past years
I've been here. This is bigger than me.
This is--this is for the city.
Sam Cassell, every day in my ear, at dinner,
and when we at lunch,
when we chilling, whatever we're doing,
he's talking about winning and this being the year,
and, "Fuck the past. I don't give a shit.
Nigga, I'm here. We here."
That's the first time I really felt like,
"wow, I'm--I'ma have a chance to go to the Finals.
Fabolous' "Breathe"
The performance he put on in game seven
in the semifinals-- it's classic.
[sportscaster] Hassell across the lane
-and out to Kevin Garnett. -[cheers and applause]
[Sam C] He did it all like the point guard,
he was the two guard, he was the rebounder.
[sportscaster] Shot clock is at eight for Garnett.
[sportscaster] I can tell you
for Kevin Garnett, that feels good.
[Kevin] Webber and I are going at it, just mano a mano.
People know my favorite player was Chris Webber, so it was,
like, an honor to have it be on the stage at this level.
-[sportscaster] Kevin Garnett! -[cheers and applause]
[sportscaster] He just crossed over
and left Chris Webber standing in his wake.
Kevin Garnett is taking over this game!
He did it all from the big man position.
[sportscaster] Garnett way outside.
Oh, what a shot by Kevin Garnett!
The game was moving like this,
but I'm moving like this.
[sportscaster] Webber for the tie.
[horn blasting]
And the Minnesota Timberwolves
are going to the Western Conference Finals.
Jumped on the table. "Yeah, we did this shit!
Yeah! We finna win this bitch!"
God damn it! And it hit me.
"Shit." Came in there, and I collapsed.
We got in the locker room, and he sat in the chair,
said, "Phew, I'm going to bed." [chuckles]
suspenseful music
[sportscaster] The opening tip controlled by Karl Malone.
[Sam C] We think we can win the championship.
I'm healthy. I'm feeling good.
Nothing was gonna stop us from winning the championship
but a injury--
a injury.
[sportscaster] Cassell headed to the locker room
with Minnesota trainer Gregg Farnam.
[Paul] Once Sam went down,
I was like, "Man, they don't got no chance."
You gotta understand,
Shaq and Kobe was rolling then.
You needed all arms on deck if you was gonna beat them.
[sportscaster] Bryant with a beautiful move!
Shaq and Kobe kept a lot of great players at that time
out of the Finals.
sparse downbeat music
[Kevin] This picture right here,
I had over my bed for a very long time.
I heard someone say if you wanted dreams to come to life,
then you have to actually see it,
be able to-- you know what I mean?
So I had this made,
and I put this over my-- over my bed.
Used to wake up to this every day.
Wake up, wake up, and believe it, wake up,
look at it, believe it, wake up,
see it, believe it, wake up, ingest it,
believe it, wake up, wake up. Every day.
The Lakers series was a very exhausting series.
And then the rumblings from the management was like,
"Yeah, you know,
"that Spree and Sam Cassell thing didn't work.
Sam's not durable enough."
It just turned into some bullshit.
Real quick.
Are you taking the full responsibility for this?
Are you feeling--?
Got no choice.
-But it is what it is, yo. -[fidgeting]
Shit is killing me.
[Paul] He let it all out, man.
You saw the frustration, you heard the frustration,
that no matter how great he was, it wasn't enough.
[Kevin] Flip came in to a practice
and said he was fired.
My wife was telling me, like, you know,
"If they doing Flip like this, like, you know, at some point,
"they probably gonna do Kevin McHale like this,
and it's probably gonna-- you probably gonna be next."
We took a picture one time.
It's a black-and-white picture of Glen Taylor,
Kevin McHale, and Flip Saunders.
And in the picture, I sat on this wooden box.
You know, Glen's the shortest one out of all of us,
so he needs to sit up so it all looks symmetrically.
But when I look back on it, it did this.
I looked at it and I was like,
"This is how they see you.
"This is why all of the requests
"and all the things that you're talking about
"or trying to get done--it ain't being viewed the same,
because they view you on this level."
Management gave the call down from upstairs
that I didn't have permission to play,
because they wanted draft picks and all this other shit.
Cops told me
I couldn't motherfucking put the jersey on.
And that's my last time in a-- in a--in a Timberwolves jersey.
[speaker] Watching him play, year in and year out,
being in the West, like,
banging his head against the wall,
I, from afar, kept saying,
"Kevin needs to get out of there."
Now, I never thought, in my wildest dreams,
getting out of there would mean coming to the Celtics
and me coaching him.
[Sam M] If Kevin Garnett had his way,
he would have played with the same group of guys
his entire career.
But I remember telling him,
"You don't want to be one of those guys
"labeled as one of the greatest players to never win.
"You gotta give yourself a chance
to win a championship."
[Kevin] I had Golden State, Phoenix, I had Boston,
and I had the Lakers.
And then I talked to Danny Ainge,
and Danny Ainge had a vision.
Paul Pierce and I had played on AAU teams
when we were really young,
and the world I don't even think knew that.
[cheers and applause]
[Paul] Being a Boston Celtic, expectations is championships.
[cheers and applause]
We was on our way.
My fourth year, we was in the Conference Finals.
And then we started taking steps back.
You know how long a rebuild can take?
There's teams out here that been rebuilding for 25 years.
I don't got time for that. [chuckles]
Everything was really fragile
in Boston.
Was Doc Rivers was gonna last another season?
Was Paul Piece going to last? Was Danny Ainge?
All the people that we now look at as
these legendary Celtics figures
I think all had a pretty tenuous hold
on their existence in Boston at that time.
Can we curse on this?
[producer] Go right ahead, Perk.
Oh.
We the worst fucking team in the league.
We getting our ass kicked. We lose 18 games in a row.
And we like, "What the hell is next?"
[speaker] It was a horrible start to my career.
To come into that season and lose 18 straight
was a big, big shock for me.
A lot of people came to the game with bags on their heads,
yelling, "Fire Doc."
And the direction it seemed like the team was going--
it wasn't in a hurry to kind of win at that particular time.
Just a heartbreaking loss for this club, Tom.
Well, get used to it.
I guess you would call it rock bottom
if you were a Celtic fan.
That's where they had just about hit
with the long losing streak and everything else.
So Danny once again became Trader Danny.
That's his reputation around the league.
Anybody on the roster is possible to be traded,
and that includes draft picks and everything else.
We have a trade.
The Boston Celtics trade Wally Szczerbiak
and Delonte West to the Seattle Supersonics
for Ray Allen and the draft rights to Glen Davis.
[Howard] Now you've got a second star.
You're not a contender yet,
but you've really set the groundwork
to try to get Kevin Garnett out of Minnesota.
[Doc] That moment, Danny's target was KG.
The problem is we traded all the players to Seattle,
so there was no deal.
Kevin McHale, myself, and Danny Ainge went to golf.
I remember Kevin McHale saying,
"I just want the best young big man in the league."
And that's the moment I knew we were gonna get him.
'Cause Al Jefferson was absolutely
the best young big man coming up,
so we gave them Al and the team.
[Rajon] It was, like, a seven-player deal for Kevin.
And that's when I think I realized, like,
the impact of who he was,
'cause it was-it was my entire team going for one person.
[emcee] The newest member of the Boston Celtics,
-Kevin Garnett. -[cheers and applause]
[Howard] The second that the Celtics unite
those three guys, create this superteam,
this was one of those tremor kind of moments for the NBA.
Shaq and Kobe were a great team,
but there wasn't a third star.
You had Duncan and Robinson,
but you didn't have three guys all still in their prime,
all Hall of Fame-caliber, united on one team.
We hadn't seen anything like that in a long time.
Initially, I had no interest in leaving Minnesota.
I thought this was my--
probably my best opportunity at winning a ring,
so I took the big steps to make those adjustments,
and here we are.
[Howard] Kevin Garnett and Boston
were star-crossed lovers.
You know these stories about couples
that find each other--they had worked in the same place,
they had lived in the same building,
maybe bumped into each other in the laundry room,
but it never really clicked for whatever reason?
And then,
when Boston and Kevin Garnett finally got together,
they both looked at each other, like,
"Where have you been my whole life?"
[Danny] KG transformed us.
I mean, Paul and Ray obviously are Hall of Fame players
and unbelievable, but KG was that missing piece
and that energy that just gave
everybody in the franchise,
everybody in the city,
this hope that they hadn't had for a long time.
[Kevin] When you come into the Celtics practice facility,
it's banners everywhere.
It's history right in front of you.
This is the fraternity that you're a part of now.
[sportscaster] Bill Russell goes in.
He dunks it! That did it!
95-85!
The first Celtic he met was Bill Russell,
who gave him the jersey and said, "Welcome to Boston."
I always said you my favorite player to watch.
-Always? I don't know, you... -You never disappoint.
Crack so many jokes, I don't know if that's real or not.
-Oh, it's real. -I'm joking. Joking.
-And you never disappointed me. -Thank you.
Thank you. Hey, [murmurs].
And you finally got on the right uniform.
-I finally got the right-- -[laughter]
It was like talking to my grandfather, man.
It was like getting jewels from, like,
the jeweler himself.
Was talking about battles with Wilt,
and the Black movement, you know, and civil rights.
Man, Bill Russell was another level.
And I felt like I needed that part to really cement
being in Boston and what it meant to be there.
I needed that piece.
Doc gave us a great team symbolism word
to unify us, which was ubuntu.
It meant to give your own to the next guy, next to you,
so that he or she could be better,
and that it comes back to you, to and fro.
[imitating Doc Rivers] "Kevin, I got 15 minutes
"for this shoot. I gotta get in here.
You know--you know, my tee time is"--
I already know.
You got a tee time you going to?
-Oh, shit, what up, Doc? -I got a tee time every day.
-How you doing, bro? -[Doc] What's up, my brother?
-[Kevin] Good to see you, man. -[Doc] How you doing?
-[Kevin] I'm good. -[Doc] Oh, good.
My man looks good. Can you play still?
-[Kevin] Who? -You.
-[Kevin] 'Bout ten minutes. -You can't play ten minutes.
[Kevin] Solid. Not this shit.
You know, every time I've ever been in Doc's presence,
I've always picked his brain, I've always been inquisitive.
He knows I'm almost, like, the eighth kid,
or the--how many kids you got? Nine? Ten?
Stop it, man. Stop it.
I'm like the bastard kid over here,
-you know what I'm saying? -He's the fifth kid.
He is. But he's more than a kid.
[laughs]
Man, it's just amazing.
When you win it with a team,
it's like you've had a blood transfusion.
For the rest of your life, you're connected.
You can never take our bond away. You just can't.
Celtic Pride and ubuntu are very parallel.
Celtic Pride, believing in something, giving your all.
And when he said that,
it couldn't have been more powerful in the room,
'cause we had a room full of young beasts and young egos
and everybody feeling they self,
but we all came together.
And then everybody had to learn they own definition of it.
Ubuntu is in your heart. He pulled it out of us.
[Doc] I had the rookies introduce it.
They were amazing.
I was shocked.
Big Baby in particular. He had tears.
I mean, he was talking in passionate ways.
And right when he finishes, Kevin yells...
-[Kevin] One, two, three! -[all] Ubuntu!
[Doc] Y'all go to dinner! I'll pay for all y'all.
Yeah!
[speaker] I was kind of that guinea pig.
I did everything.
And I would present that word ubuntu to the team.
We used that everywhere where went.
Even if we were out there clubbing, we would ubuntu.
Popping bottles, ubuntu.
[laughing] You know what I'm saying?
Like, that's how it was.
-[sneakers squeaking] -[whistle blows]
Fuck-ass nigga! Fuck, nigga!
[Doc] I don't want to hear it. I am not listening to it.
Now, I know--
That's fire, man.
No, it's a difference.
-That's fire. -It's a difference.
-I was composed. -No.
[Sam M] I'm coaching in Toronto.
Doc Rivers calls me.
"Hey, man, I need you to talk to KG for a minute."
And he goes into how relentless KG is in practice,
and that he feels like KG is trying to prove to them.
And I stopped him in his track.
I said, "Wait a minute, Doc.
"If you're thinking this is fake, uh-uh.
It's real." And I said, "Let me tell you what else.
"Don't try to get him to tone it down,
"because before it's over,
"every player in that locker room is gonna be just like him.
"And when every player in that locker rooms starts acting
"like he acts in practice,
you're gonna win a championship."
-[Kevin] Celtics! -[all] Hoo-rah!
-[Kevin] One, two, three! -[all] Ubuntu!
-[announcer] KG! -[cheers and applause]
KG turned the TD Garden into the Coliseum,
-and he was Maximus. -[cheers and applause]
[Doc] I've never seen a team, maybe in NBA history,
play as hard as that team played for an entire year.
People call me Jesus. That's the Ticket.
-And this The Truth. -The Truth.
It's like the Justice League.
We all sat here, we all had a superpower,
and I chose to play defense on a nightly basis.
This is what I'ma hang my hat on.
It was an incredible level
of intense, solid team basketball.
[sportscaster] Pass deflected by Eddie House.
Picked off by Pierce. Ray Allen for the game!
Got it! At the buzzer!
[Kevin] We viewed ourselves as road warriors.
We'll beat your fucking team's ass, and we out of here.
Wherever we went, we was rockstars.
[sportscaster] Boston Celtics have swept the Texas triangle!
[Kevin] When you win a championship,
you have a little bit of luck and timing.
[indistinct chatter]
When PJ Brown and Sam Cassell joined us,
I felt like we were super complete.
[sportscaster] The Boston Celtics reminding you
this is the best team in the NBA in '07-'08.
[producer] Brian Scalabrine.
[Brian] I get a phone call, and it's KG.
He's like, "Yo, Red!
-Get yo' ass in shape!" -[hand slaps]
And he hangs the phone up
[laughing] and that's all he said.
That is my first interaction with my teammate Kevin Garnett.
Slow down these pick and rolls.
They don't want to play no pick and roll game.
Be aggressive!
[Brian] This team was--we were a little psycho, right?
And we were into competition, we were into boxing,
we'd shoot dice, we played cards.
Like, we were nuts.
For whatever reason, arm wrestling comes up.
And we've all established who the champ is.
No one's beating Big Baby.
He's big, he's strong, he's a little bit nuts.
Leon and Big Baby got to shit-talking.
They was like, "Whatever. What's--what's--what's up?"
Big Baby Davis and Leon Powe
are arm wrestling on the plane.
I had already beaten Leon Powe.
Have you ever seen Leon arms?
Them look like two hippos going at it.
When they smack hands, and Baby was slobbering,
and talking crazy, just trying to really intimidate.
And he slammed him--boom! Slammed his hands.
We was like, "Damn! Like, what the fuck?"
Everybody gassing. First, it's Paul.
And Paul was like, "Shit! Bet you can't beat Ticket!"
Like, "Man, get the fuck out. I ain't arm wrestling.
Nigga, we got a game, you know what I'm saying?"
You know, I'm a strong guy,
so I know I beat Leon, I can beat Ticket.
I was like, "Man, sit your little fat ass down.
"Ain't nobody trying to arm wrestle your little ass, nigga.
"You ain't even that strong, nigga.
"I actually saw you grabbing the table.
"You ain't really the strongest nigga in here.
You know, relax."
All of a sudden, Paul Pierce comes up.
He's like, "I got $2,000 on Garnett."
And right away, everyone was like, "Bet!"
And niggas like, "I'm going with Baby!"
And I heard T, "I'm with Baby! I'm with Baby!
Oh, I'm with Baby!"
I kind of looked at everybody, like,
"Damn, this how y'all feel?
Mm." [clicks tongue]
Threw my hand up. "Yeah."
And they say, "Oh, shit!"
We hit. Boom!
Okay, cool, I'ma show him.
They're going back and forth.
They are just muscles, sweating, bulging.
[both shouting]
And he just--I'm letting him gas his self out.
Big Baby starts sweating.
And he gets, like, all these fucked up faces.
Like--and he's like uhhhh--
Uhhhhhh!
All of a sudden, KG does, like--he does that.
When his hand start moving, I go, "Oh, shit."
[chuckling] He just going too hard, bro.
I didn't want nobody to get hurt.
The minute I get wind that he gassed out,
I feel his-- I feel his hand start moving.
And when he saw it move,
you could see all, like, the goosebumps get on.
Kevin goes down a little, comes back.
He kept going. "You ain't gonna beat me.
Oh, fuck no! Fuck! You ain't gonna beat me!"
Boom! "Fuck wrong with you, nigga?"
Takes off his shirt. Drenched! Drenched sweat!
And then starts hitting himself.
"I'm the fucking silverback on this team."
"I'm the silverback on this motherfucker!
You understand, nigga?"
Bread everywhere. Money go in the air.
Everyone's like, "Aww, man, I can't believe he did that."
Big Baby's devastated on the table.
I'm smart.
We're not gonna hurt Ticket. [laughs]
Paul grabbed me from the back and start choking.
I get up. I pick P up. "Fuck wrong with them, P?"
So me and P like this. "What's wrong with them, P?"
And that told me right then and there who this dude was.
'Cause he didn't give a damn.
And it made him the leader of this team.
KG always said this. "I can't get into a fight,
because if I lose, they're gonna have to kill me."
And I--I actually really believed him on that one.
Like, I really believe that when he plays basketball,
it is win or die.
[sportscaster] The Boston Celtics have completed
the biggest single-season turnaround in NBA history--
24 wins a year ago, 66 this year.
Now Kevin Garnett and company
are looking forward to the playoffs.
And just touch the top. Little clapper.
soft dramatic music
How about that, huh?
So you kept thinking, as the season went on,
"Well, maybe. Maybe they really are gonna win the whole thing?
Can they win the whole thing?"
You know, 'cause you just-- it had been so long.
[sportscaster] Three on two. Smith!
[cheers and applause]
[Jackie] So they play Atlanta in the first round,
and you think, "Well, this is gonna be fine."
But it wasn't. And you started to wonder,
"Oh my gosh, are they gonna lose in the first round?"
Of course, they didn't. They got through it.
[Glen] We went seven games with Atlanta.
It was really, really tough.
And then the next series, you got LeBron James.
Game seven again. How did we get here, dog?
[sportscaster] Rondo, lead for Pierce.
Sets around Delonte West.
Right-hand dribble, LeBron. Again strong in the middle.
Puts it up with the left hand and scores.
It became an epic battle
between Pierce and LeBron James.
[Doc] He almost singlehandedly beat us that night.
That was one of the great game sevens.
[sportscaster] The Celtics are going back
to the Eastern Conference Finals
for the first time since 2002.
On Tuesday, we're exactly where we thought
we would be--game one, at home, against Detroit.
[cheers and applause]
[sportscaster] Pierce ahead of the pack.
Back to Garnett for the slam!
We was like, "Oh, no, we not letting this go seven."
[chuckles]
[Kevin] We came to Detroit,
and if anybody knows anything about Detroit,
they got these little, like, closet locker rooms.
And I think they had two locker rooms in there.
I think we could have had the bigger locker room,
and they put us in a real small one.
And Doc was like, "You know what, man?
"We should beat these niggas here
just 'cause they gave us this little-ass--"
[chuckling] He was just picking from everywhere.
[sportscaster] The Celtics going back to the NBA Finals
for the first time since 1987.
And now, it's on to face the Lakers.
[Doc] I do remember walking in the locker room
with the silver ball and said, "Wrong color."
"This is not what we're playing for.
"We're playing for the gold ball,
not the silver ball."
Doc said, "No one touch the trophy.
That ain't what we here for."
[all] Beat LA! Beat LA!
[Kevin] Then P started, "Beat LA! Beat LA!"
Ooh-whoo!
That's when the real smoke started.
That's when you ain't sleeping for real, for real.
orchestral music fades
pensive dramatic music
It's like that bully that you go to school every day,
and you know when you get out your mom's or dad car,
you know you gotta see him
soon as you walk through the front doors.
And he'll be sitting there with his feet up
waiting on you to pat your pockets and mess with you.
And then it's like one day you say to yourself,
"You know what? This is gonna stop today."
[cheers and applause]
[Howard] The idea that we were
going to get Celtics-Lakers ever again,
that this rivalry could be reborn,
you don't have to be a Celtics or Lakers fan
to even appreciate this.
That rivalry was part of basketball immortality, right?
You think about the great players
that played for each team.
[Mike] In the '80s, I think of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
You go way back, and you think of Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor.
And now, all of a sudden, there was this new group.
It was Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen and Paul Pierce,
and you got the matchup with Kobe Bryant.
[Paul] The Celtics versus the Lakers?
Are you kidding me?
This is the rivalry that got me watching basketball,
that got me loving basketball
growing up in Inglewood down the street from the Forum,
watching Larry Bird, Magic in the Finals
all through the '80s.
This is why I fell in love with the game.
-Now, I'm a part of it! -[cheers and applause]
[Doc] Game one, the atmosphere was insane.
And the level of intensity is what stood out.
[sportscaster] Garnett has to go back.
Able to save it to Brown,
so it wasn't a backcourt violation.
Cassell a jumper. Pops it in!
Big play by Kevin Garnett!
Posey for three!
Back of the rim-- Garnett on the slam!
And Boston goes up two-nothing in the NBA Finals.
[Kevin] Everybody know why we're going to LA, right?
-This ain't no vacation. -[person] Hell, nah.
[Kevin] We're going out here to get us a win.
Keep that in mind now. Straight up.
-[person] You're home. -All right.
Back at the house, baby, LA.
Know we gotta get this win. Let's do it.
[cheers and applause]
[sportscaster] Celtics really struggling.
One of nine from the field and three turnovers.
[sportscaster] Well, it's a nightmare for Boston,
but a spectacular start for the Lakers
as they finish with the largest lead ever
after one quarter in an NBA Finals game.
[Sam C] Game four was a strange game early.
We couldn't make a shot.
We couldn't throw a rock in the ocean.
And the Lakers was throwing every rock they found
in the ocean.
Come on, guys!
Keep fighting! Keep fighting! Keep fighting!
[Doc] The message was, "Hey, let's get it to 18."
Got it to 18. "Let's get it to 14."
Got it to 14.
[Kevin] Defensively, we were all trying
to just wear the Lakers down at some point,
but then, at the same time, still score.
All right, we're right there! We're right there!
Doc was like, "Hey, if you believe,
"get your ass in this huddle.
"If you don't, go on to the locker room.
'Cause we ain't gonna come out of this unless you believe."
Do you believe? All right, let's go.
[Tom] Keep fighting!
[Celtic] One. Two. Three. [all] Ubuntu!
We knew what we had to rely on-- ubuntu.
Like, we need each other.
I'll never forget, Sam always in my ear in the huddle.
"Cut it to 15. Get it to 10."
"We gonna cut this motherfucker,
point by point, bit by bit."
And you could see us kind of like, "Ugh, man.
No, we ain't gonna let this go. Come on."
Here come P. "Here we come! Here we come! Here we come!"
Next thing, we looked up, that shit was tied.
[sportscaster] And the Celtics have
their first lead of the game.
[Doc] Our belief system was challenged,
and we never wavered.
[sportscaster] And it's official.
The Celtics have come back from a 24-point deficit.
[sportscaster] And they go up three games to one
and have a chance to wrap it up in Los Angeles.
That's when you hear the classic Paul Pierce
come up like, "One more! One more!"
One more! Let's go!
That 24-point comeback was historic,
and exciting a game as I've been involved in.
[Kevin] We thought we was gonna beat they ass in LA,
then we shit the bed game five.
[sportscaster] Bounce to the left high post to Pau.
Left corner to Kobe. A three.
He buries it off-balance!
[sportscaster] And Kobe looks like
he's on a mission tonight.
[sportscaster] Bryant--hits a three, again!
[sportscaster] Another hot start
just like they did in game four.
Kobe and Kevin were very similar creatures.
Just kill.
[laughs] And that's just both of them.
They're both killers.
[Jackie] There was a lot of drama here.
Kobe Bryant wanted so desperately
to separate himself from Shaquille O'Neal
and to prove that he could win without Shaquille O'Neal.
And that was driving him very, very strongly.
[Kevin] '08, Kob wanted that more than anything.
Told him, "You ain't got enough!
"You out here by yourself! Better go get Diesel.
You know you can't win it without Diesel."
You could tell that Kobe had the Lakers:
"Hey, we ain't trying to befriend any of these guys."
Kevin had us:
"We're not trying to be close to any of those guys."
There was hatred in that series, in a good way.
[sportscaster] And that will do it.
The series is going back to Boston, as the Lakers survive.
suspenseful music
We get up in the morning to fly.
The Lakers took off before us.
We got to the airport before them.
They plane, like, right there. We could see out the window.
We delayed like two or three hours.
We think something up.
I'm like, "What's going on?"
The pilot comes on and says, "We have something wrong
with the plane, and we can't take off."
They bring another plane. We get on this plane.
This plane is broke.
So the Lakers' two planes took off great.
We're in LA, and now, our two planes aren't working.
And I was going at it.
Fortunately, the owner of the team
had a plane for the family and friends.
I had to go on the family plane
and kick off the wives and some of all the owners,
and we were gonna commandeer that plane,
and they were gonna find another plane.
[Sam C] Get to Boston like 10:00 at night.
We got a game the next night. The next night!
I never bought into any conspiracies
about the plane not taking off,
but with Phil Jackson, you just--
you just never know, right?
Like, I'd watch a documentary about that.
[Kevin] I didn't sleep that night,
so I went to the gym. I worked out.
I had a kid, a newborn kid, and all that.
It was just haunting me. I went and got a whole workout.
Got about 1,000 shots up. 500 makes.
Went to the crib and just stayed off my feet,
hyperbaric chamber,
and just thought about what I'ma do game six.
Before the game, I walked in,
and I was a little concerned that we thought
we may not be ready because of all that.
And I actually said, "This is our last game this year,
and we're not gonna just win, we're gonna win big."
I just remember, game six, Doc saying...
[imitating Doc] "Uh, guys,
"I don't have a lot to say tonight,
"uh, but I just want to say...
[normally] "You don't beat this team by 25, 30,
you shouldn't want to show up tonight."
Let's go get it. It's right there!
I just remember being in the locker room,
just--and I'm just, like, hearing the crowd.
"Beat LA." Oh, man, it gave me chills.
It was like, "This the moment right here."
Been the best team all year long. All year long!
Let's go out there and show them why.
-Let's go! -[person] Let's go.
-Showtime! -[all] Hoo-rah!
-One, two, three! -[all] Ubuntu!
Right before jump ball, I just dapped Pau.
"Hey, man, this ain't personal."
[sportscaster] Garnett against Gasol.
The high release.
Attack! Attack!
[sportscaster] Pierce to the basket.
Out to Garnett.
Good open look for Kevin Garnett.
Embarrassing the Lakers. Garnett inside.
Banks it in! And a foul!
What a play from Kevin Garnett!
We went out and played unbelievable.
Relax, baby.
[Sam C] At halftime--
Tom Thibodeau was our defense guy.
He's ready to go over some defensive things,
and Doc just stopped him, and say,
"Uh-huh. Keep doing what the fuck y'all doing!"
The third quarter, we was doing it.
upbeat funky music
[sportscaster] Ray Allen for three.
Pierce, left-handed.
Pretty play from Pierce.
Pau Gasol. And a jump ball.
Kevin Garnett, the Defensive Player of the Year.
All year long, we searched for the perfect game to play,
on both ends.
In search of the perfect game, we finally played it,
and it came at the right moment.
[sportscaster] It's just a matter
of the clock winding down.
[Doc] I had a whole quarter to sit back
and look at the crowd and take it in.
That was the first time that whole year I was able
to take something in.
I hugged Paul.
Next thing you know, they grab me.
And I think it was their way of telling me
they know I've been through a lot, too, in my career,
as a player and a coach.
They wanted me to know that I was a champion,
and I wanted them to know that they were a champion.
It was like we were giving it back to each other.
When I came out the game, he grabbed me, he said,
[imitating Doc] "Didn't I tell you?
"Didn't I tell you we was gonna win this motherfucker?
Didn't I tell you?" I was like--[laughs]
That's when Paul grabbed the Gatorade bucket.
It was like two minutes to go in the game when he did that.
[Paul] "Man, give me the Gatorade.
"'m about to pour it on Doc."
This ain't never been done in the NBA.
They do it in football. Look.
[imitating splashing] Aw, man, Doc loved it.
[laughs]
[sportscaster] And after a 22-year absence,
the Boston Celtics are NBA champions once again.
Hell yeah! Hell yeah!
Banner number 17 soon to be raised to the rafters.
dramatic orchestral music
[Sean] There was no better way for the Celtics,
who were a wire-to-wire team that year.
The biggest one-year turnaround in NBA history.
This was the only way they could win,
not just by beating a team, but by beating a team up.
Oh, my God!
I got you. I got you.
"Just won a NBA championship. Boy, anything is possible."
Anything's possible.
I just yelled that shit. "Anything's possible!"
Anything's possible!
And it came from the heart.
[Wolf] The NBA championship is going down.
And I'm at home the day before.
I've seen game one, game two.
Every game he's played, I'm watching,
I'm watching, I'm watching.
Then to get that phone call day before the game and say,
"Coach, I need you at the game."
I said, "Damn. You need me at the game.
So I guess you know where I'm gonna be then, right?"
And to have him go out there and perform the way he did,
I felt so good.
And he said, "I got my ring. I finally did it."
And I'm like, "That's the championship
that we didn't get the chance to get."
[exuberant clamoring]
Me and KG stayed in the locker room
till like 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.
All the champagne is gone, so now we drinking brews.
[laughs]
And we just like, "Man, can't believe this, right?
Feel like a dream."
Made it, Ma! Top of the world!
[Paul] I mean, the last time we teamed up,
we won the tournament in Vegas,
we won in the Mickey D's game.
I mean, we were undefeated as teammates.
Like, what if we had have teamed up sooner?
What if we had have teamed up from the beginning?
[exhales deeply]
Man, y'all know how it go, boy. Whew.
Thank you all for being patient.
Man. Phew.
Man, man, man. [exhales deeply]
[journalist] Scoop, in the back, under the camera.
-[Scoop] Scoop Jackson, espn.com.
Scoop, I'm here, son.
[Scoop] That's what I was about to say.
-Made it, dog! -[Scoop] That's I'm saying.
-Y'all, they don't know-- -I'm here!
[Scoop] That's--they don't know.
We go back. So I just want to know,
how does it finally feel to finally let this out?
'Cause you been holding this in for a long time.
And I don't know if anybody in the room
knows how long you been holding it in.
At the time, I was with ESPN.
And as KG was answering questions, I'm like,
"Not one media member
"in this room covered him
"when he was in high school.
"Nobody here, you know,
knows what this feels like for him."
You know, him sitting up here with this NBA trophy
was so much more than him just winning the championship.
Explain to them what it feels like
to finally let this out of your soul.
[sighs]
You ever go to school,
and you have that bully mess with you every day?
And you sort of kind of shook, 'cause, you know what,
you just knocked the bully out,
and you don't know he gonna come back.
So the next morning, when you come in,
and he not there, it's like a sigh of relief.
Every year, it can only be one winner.
Only one winner.
Each year, you hit the bottom and come back up
to climb this mountain,
in takes a little air out of you.
Like, "God damn." [sighs]
So the bully was all those years of busting my ass,
and getting my ass kicked, and getting in shape,
and just, just grinding, grinding, grinding,
playoff series after playoff series
after playoff series,
these guys, these guys, this-- all this shit--all of it!
Ah!
And it will make you question what you're doing...
Oh, shit.
Why you going this hard.
[exhales deeply]
But as much as it kicks your ass,
it also re-instills that energy in you.
And then you start over, on the bottom,
and you have to climb this hill.
You know, it's like getting rid of the bully.
-I knocked the bully ass out. -[laughter]
I knocked his ass clean out. That's what it feels like.
I got my own. I got my own, man.
Thought about everybody who's been with me on this journey.
Top of the world. Made it, Ma.
music fades
[campfire crackling]
When I was younger, I used to love to build fires.
We used to have a big-ass fire, like, stove,
and I used to have to build these things and all that.
Country boy.
As you evolve in, like, your profession,
and you being a master of your craft,
you get to a point where physically,
your body starts to tell you
that we can't go at this certain velocity,
or you can't go at this certain--
this certain speed, or this certain rage.
You can't--you know?
And that was hard for me, 'cause all I know is all-out.
Because I've always felt like I can go to another level.
I used to say that shit.
"Take it to another level, Kev.
"This nigga can't hold you out here.
Take it to another level, Kev. You the best in the building."
This my first time going through
any of this Hall of Fame stuff.
And they asked me, you know,
if I could choose someone to present me
or bring me out or whatever,
and it's only right that I ask someone
who I felt like helped me get to a point
to where I could make a strong decision on my future
when I was so young.
And if you would consider, you know,
possibly introducing me and bringing me out?
I would be honored to stand on the stage next to you
and let the basketball world
and the community just see Kevin Garnett.
That's what's up. Zeke, I appreciate that, man.
And I look forward to seeing you and hugging you.
And when I hug you, if I start crying, just--
just don't think I'm soft. [laughs]
No. Hey, look, you far from that.
We all know you far from that, man.
[switch clicks and echoes]
[Kevin] You know, a lot of times,
I think about what if I didn't go play?
What if I went down to Roosevelt's Boys & Girls Club
and just got some shots up and just wanted to think?
You know, what if I never went to the gym
and Jordan let me come in and hoop?
What I never seen Zeke? What if none of that happened?
dramatic music
It would have been what it would have been.
But at that moment that I went in there,
and those things did happen, like anything,
opportunity comes when you least expect it.
It's what you gonna do with that opportunity, you know?
And do you have the guts and do you have the work ethic?
You got the strength to be able to go through
what you talking about?
It's all possible.
[emcee] Anything Is Possible: Kevin Garnett.
[applause]
I told them I wanted to go first, man,
'cause I know we got the OGs in here.
I know y'all got a bed time in a minute, so.
[laughter]
To the city of Chicago, I want to thank you for adopting me
and bringing me in as one of your own.
To the city of Minneapolis,
I look forward to rebuilding you.
-To the Boston Celtics... -[cheers and applause]
Danny Ainge, your vision, Doc Rivers, your leadership,
helping me be not only a better player,
but a better person.
I played the game just hard.
Played the game with a passion.
Um, I wanted to say, Timmy, thank you, man.
Congratulations to you and Kob.
Congratulations, Vanessa.
I love y'all. That's my time. Thank you guys. I love y'all.
[cheers and applause]
upbeat music
I'm immortal.
Hall of Fame. Y'all, holla at me.
So KG, man, I'm so happy that you here, dog.
-Big Ticket! -Right.
The motherfucking thang.
I don't know what color jacket they give y'all
for making it to the Basketball Hall of Fame,
but my nigga, you damn sure going up in there.
-You deserve to be up in there. -Appreciate it.
And just 'cause you going up in there,
I made space for you to get your plaque on the wall.
[Kevin] And let me say something to you.
[Snoop] I'm putting the KG plaque on the wall, cuz.
I'm sorry. Hey, listen, I'ma say this.
Ain't nobody coming down. I'm just making space for you.
[Kevin] I was about to say,
you cannot take nobody down here.
No, no. No. Nah, nigga, ain't nobody coming down.
I'm just gonna make space for you.
Look, I appreciate that.
[Snoop] I'm putting you up there 'cause you my guy.
And a little birdie told me
that the Celtics gonna retire number five?
[Kevin] Yeah, yeah. They gonna put the five up.
-Cinco? -[Kevin] Right.
In the rafters?
[Kevin] In the rafters with P. And Bird.
-With Russell. -[Kevin] And Russell.
Bird, McHale.
-[Kevin] Facts. Facts. -Cousy.
"Havlicek stole the ball."
-Facts. Facts. -Quit playing, man.
They gonna put the knick knack paddy whack up there?
-They gonna put it up there. -Come on, KG.
What about-- now, look here, man.
If they gonna do that,
Minnesota got to put that 21 up, man.
-They play too much. -Yeah. Minnesota different.
Quit playing, Minnesota. 21 reasons, man.
Minnesota--Minnesota different. They different.
Hey, I love when you got to the mountaintop.
And I say this all the time, because,
when real ones get there,
you don't give a fuck what team they play for,
'cause we all play for the same team.
Right.
And when I seen you get to the mountaintop,
and you finally said, "Anything's possible..."
Facts. I felt that.
-I knew your struggle. -Facts.
'Cause I ain't just gonna hook up with anybody.
It's got be a killa.
I tried to come out here. Kob wouldn't pick the phone up.
Couldn't get Kob on the phone.
-Come on, man. [laughs] -I shot this.
There's a picture--it's a famous picture of Kob and I
on the free throw line, chopping.
We in the Finals. I finally get to the Finals.
I'm in Boston.
And he go, "Man, what number you call, man?
You sure you called?" I said, "Man, get the fuck out here.
"I don't want to hear that shit.
-[Snoop laughing] -"Get your ass out of here."
"Two months, dog? How long you gonna be in China?"
[Snoop] You know, we miss him. We sad.
But just when we bring his name up, it's fun times.
I'm listening to you talk about when you first seen him,
and how y'all battle, like,
and it's just-- it's those memories
of what he brought to us. He brought that joy,
either the competitiveness or either just the drive
to want to be just as good, if not better than.
-Right. 'Cause he did music. -Yeah.
Kob thought he could do it all.
And then he got to rhyming. We was in an All-Star Game
one time, he got to rhyming in fucking Italian.
[Snoop laughing]
And them niggas was laughing at him.
He's like, "See, them niggas laughing?
He don't know I just dissed everybody in the joint."
Like, "What the fuck?"
upbeat hip-hop beat
D.O.C. is probably one of my favorite artists of all time.
That's crazy you said that, 'cause D.O.C. is my sensei.
When I got on Death Row, I was dope freestyling,
and I was dope just writing dope-ass verses.
I ain't know how to make a song.
This nigga showed me how to make a song.
He showed me how to take this long-ass rap,
break it down to 16 bars,
take this piece right here, make it the hook,
and to put a little bit of flow in your shit,
and not just rap like this, but some of that shit--
It's the capital S, oh yes, and fresh
N, double-O, P
Shit like that. And you know what saying?
Follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me
Shit like that where it's, like, challenging me.
Like, "Nigga, I'm your teacher.
I'm finna show you some karate that these niggas don't got."
And the blessing about me and his relationship was
he lost his voice, so I became his spirit.
-[Kevin] Oh, wow. -You get what I'm saying?
[Kevin] Yeah, right, right.
[imitating D.O.C.] Nah, Doggy Dogg,
take that part right there and put it right there."
[Kevin] Right, right, right, right, right.
Or, "Nigga, that's a motherfucking hit."
You get what I'm saying?
Either confirmation or clarification.
-Mmm. -But you need them both.
[phone ringing]
-[D.O.C.] Doggy Dogg! -[Snoop] What's up, cuz?
[Kevin] Ooh, shit, he got D.O.C. on the joint.
[chuckles]
[D.O.C.] [indistinct] The gangstas,
the real gangstas, like, [indistinct] real--
So what you saying, nigga? We ain't real gangstas, nigga?
[laughter]
-KG, cuz, D.O.C. -[Kevin] That's crazy.
Oh, shit. He got the real D.O.C. on here.
What's up, man? Pleasure. Pleasure. Right.
Come on. Come on, KG, man.
I was telling Dogg, man,
you is, like, my favorite artist, man.
-Real love, KG. -[Kevin] Real shit, man.
-Real love, bro. -[Kevin] Real shit.
Bro, I ran with you
even though you beat the Lakers, nigga.
He talking about on the video game.
Right. Oh the video--?
Niggas ran with you, nigga. Yeah, nigga!
-[Kevin laughing] -Quit playing, nigga!
How you living, man?
[D.O.C.] I'm good, man. I'm blessed.
Too blessed to be stressed, bro.
[Kevin] Facts. Facts. That's what up.
Now, it's just hanging out with my family
and shit, just kicking it, bro.
[Kevin] Oh, okay, okay.
You coming tomorrow?
Yeah, I'll be in LA tomorrow.
I'll get there tomorrow.
And I'll probably be at Dre house tomorrow night.
I'ma pull up. I'm coming.
[Kevin] That's what's up, man. Pleasure meeting you, man.
That's what's up. Thank you, Snoop.
I appreciate that, man. All right.
-Death Row, nigga. -[laughs]