Despite playing 14 of his 21 NBA seasons with the Timberwolves and retiring with them last summer, Kevin Garnett isn’t particularly pleased with the way that his time in Minnesota ended.
In an interview with Adi Joseph of For The Win that ran on Tuesday, the 15-time All-Star revealed that there was talk under former head coach and president of basketball operations Flip Saunders of him getting a post-retirement role with the Timberwolves, perhaps in a front office or ownership capacity. But Saunders passed away from Hodgkin’s lymphoma in October 2015, and owner Glen Taylor essentially just scrapped the plan for Garnett.
“It seemed like it was perfect for how Flip organized and put it together and designed it,” said Garnett. “Obviously when he left us, Glen saw differently and wanted to go a different way.
“To say Debbie Downer is an understatement,” he continued. “It was a huge disappointment and one that showed me the true Glen Taylor. It showed me how he really feels. When this guy got the team, it was worth $90 million. When I left it, it was worth somewhere in the $400 (millions). That was never taken into account in my value or none of that. I guess I served my purpose, and I was on to the next.”
Garnett and Saunders were indeed responsible for putting the Timberwolves franchise on the map in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. But there’s a reason why Garnett has been working with other teams since he retired, and it’s a shame that a man who came to embody Minnesota basketball is no longer on good terms with the team.
