How Two Separate Kevin Garnett Trades Revitalized The Celtics

Kevin Garnett is now officially a Hall of Famer, although we all figured he would be well before the trade that brought him to the Boston Celtics. Garnett spent his peak years with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and eventually retired with the team that drafted him, yet he is not interested in getting his number retired there. Some of this is mere politics, Garnett has a long-simmering feud with Minnesota’s current ownership, but it would be fitting if his jersey ends up only hung up in the rafters of TD Garden. Garnett’s greatest triumph, after all, came with the Celtics and he even managed to enrich the franchise on his way out.

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It all began when the Celtics struck out at the draft lottery. After semi-intentionally putting together the second worst record in the NBA, the Celtics were in a prime position to get the top pick in the 2007 draft, which would have given them a shot at choosing between Kevin Durant and Greg Oden. In retrospect, Celtics fans would come to look back at this disaster as a blessing in disguise. It’s hard to imagine what would have happened to the franchise had they “won” the draft and selected Oden—one of the biggest busts in NBA history—as their “prize.” Instead, the bounce of the ping-pong balls ensured that they would be picking fifth.

These were dark times in Boston. Captain Paul Pierce was disgruntled and openly wondering whether a trade would be necessary to revitalize his career: “I’m the classic case of a great player on a bad team,” he told the Boston Globe’s Jackie MacMullan around the time. Meanwhile, talks about the Celtics somehow stealing Garnett away from Minnesota were dashed by KG’s public declaration that he wanted no part in signing an extension with Boston. Then came the first move, Boston took that fifth pick, which ended up being Jeff Green, and traded it along with Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak in exchange for Ray Allen and the 35^th pick, Glen “Big Baby” Davis. With Allen, one of the greatest three-point shooters in NBA history, on their roster, the Celtics suddenly looked like a much more attractive destination for Garnett.

So on July 31, 2007, the Celtics made their move, handing over Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, Theo Ratliff, Gerald Green, two draft picks and a whole wad of cash to Minnesota in exchange for Garnett. It was a mammoth deal, the most amount of assets sent off for a single player in NBA history. It’s a testament to how valuable a superstar player can be when it comes to basketball that the Timberwolves still managed to get the short end of the deal. Quantity-over-quality basically never works out when it comes to NBA teams making trades.

Conventional wisdom held that it would take time for this thrown-together team to build the chemistry necessary to lead the Celtics to a championship. Conventional wisdom undervalued how desperate Pierce, Garnett and Allen were to win a ring. The New Big Three ended up taking the Celtics to the NBA Finals in their very first season together, beating Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers. The two teams would meet up in the Finals again two seasons later, although this time the Lakers would manage to defeat them in seven games. In the meantime, they created a new blueprint for how teams could put together a championship team, one the Miami Heat immediately followed when Dwyane Wade lured LeBron James and Chris Bosh over to their side.

Ultimately, that Heat lineup ended up halting the Celtics’ run. Not only did they dominate the Eastern Conference they ultimately snatched up Allen (who would eventually hit a somewhat important shot for them in the postseason). The Celtics were getting older and realized they would have to retool, which is when they pulled off their second big heist, trading a declining Garnett and Pierce (and, to a much lesser extent Josh Terry) to a Brooklyn Nets team eager for big name players to showcase to their recently acquired fans.

The Celtics received three first-round picks in that deal, along with the rights to swap a fourth, alongside a bunch of role players. This time around quantity did work out. Two of those Nets picks eventually ended up becoming Jaylen Brown and (via a trade with the Sacramento Kings that netted them an additional first round pick) Jayson Tatum, while a third was used in a trade for Kyrie Irving. While the Irving deal ultimately didn’t work out in the Celtics’ favor, and there was perhaps a small amount of revenge taken place when the Nets convinced him to sign with them in free agency last year, they still got two years of an superstar-caliber player. Meanwhile, Tatum and Brown look to be the core of the next great Celtics team. Okay, so the fourth pick ended up being wasted on James Young, but hey that’s still not a bad ratio despite what others would try to sell you.

So there you have it, Garnett completely turned the Celtics’ fortunes around twice, helping them win their first championship since 1986 and then leaving behind the pieces of a rebuild when he left along with Pierce. Certainly, he shouldn’t get all the credit here, the Timberwolves did themselves no favors in alienating their franchise player and the Nets should have realized that he and Pierce were on the downside of their careers, but none of this happens if Garnett weren’t the kind of superstar player that teams were willing to gamble their futures on. Thankfully for the Celtics, they were able to pick up Garnett when his skills matched up with his considerable reputation.