Kevin Garnett waived his no-trade clause last summer to allow the Boston Celtics to ship him and Paul Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets in hopes of getting one last shot at another championship. However, things have not been working as planned and the latest loss of the struggling Nets was Garnett's first defeat at the hands of his old team, the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Garnett has played the Wolves seven times since being traded to the Celtics in the summer of 2007, and won all those games. But in Friday's match-up against Kevin Love and the Wolves, the 37-year old former MVP was helpless as his younger opponents made mincemeat of his team's defense as the Nets lost big time, 111-81.
Garnett was a shadow of his old dominating self, registering eight points and eight rebounds in 21 minutes of play.
"Everybody's frustrated," Garnett told Sportsline.com. "I don't think there's a happy person in here or a guy who's smiling. There's nothing to be smiling about right now."
The Nets continue to lose games, dropping their fourth straight and seven in the last eight to drop to a woeful 3-9 record. The team has the most expensive payroll in the league with $190 million and surrounded by former All-Stars Garnett, Pierce, Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez. Both Lopez and Williams sat out the game due to injuries while veterans Jason Terry and Andrei Kirilenko also did not play.
Garnett is the Wolves' all-time leader in most statistical categories and was the 2004 league MVP. He remains popular in Minnesota, and the fans gave him a standing ovation after a video tribute in the first quarter. The normally intense Garnett acknowledged the ovation, got off the bench, tapped his heart and waved to the crowd.
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