Using Michael Jordan’s ‘7 Year Failure’ As Motivation, Kevin Garnett Reassures His Followers About Hard Work Paying Off

Michael Jordan‘s story in the NBA has sparked as an inspiration for many later generations of players. The 6x NBA champion with Chicago Bulls can arguably be called the best of the game, from the legacy that he has written. However, before winning his first championship in 1991, Jordan had seen 7 years of trophy drought, including watching rivals Detroit Piston snatch the championship twice.

Since winning his first championship, Jordan did not stop. He went on to win five more championships until his second retirement in 1998. Jordan has always inspired Kevin Garnett since KG joined the Minnesota Timberwolves as a rookie in 1995. Jordan’s story gave Garnett much valuable inspiration to win an NBA championship, 13 years into his career.

Garnett’s 2008 championship run cemented his status as a basketball great, finding his name alongside several other greats of his generation, such as Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Well, to reach this stage, hard work definitely paid off for KG.

 

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A post shared by Stoic The Spirit (@stoicthespirit)

Assuring this to his fans, Garnett shared a reel from ‘stoicthespirit‘ on his Instagram story that drew inspiration from his own and Michael Jordan’s careers. In the story’s caption, Garnett enlightened his fans in the morning and wrote, “In the end…WORK WORK WORK…in the end it pays offff!!”

KG puts up Michael Jordan motivation on IG pic.twitter.com/5pRThOTzKR

— tragicpatek (@tragicpatek) October 31, 2023

Surely, many of KG’s fans can definitely relate to what their idol has to say. After all, following the same principle helped Garnett become both a Celtics and an NBA legend.

Kevin Garnett’s own story of joining the Celtics was a path towards success

Kevin Garnett was drafted as a 5th overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite spending around 12 seasons with the Timberwolves, the 2004 MVP started showing frustrations of not winning an NBA championship. Eventually, in 2007, Garnett was traded to the Boston Celtics after recording the then-longest tenure of any player in the NBA with one team.

Joining the Celtics, Garnett proclaimed he was proud to be part of the squad. As Garnett arrived, many experts already had the resurgence of the Celtics in the league during the 2007-08 season.

Eventually, KG helped the Celtics, alongside Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, to win the team’s 17th NBA championship and his very first NBA ring. Exclaiming his joy during the post-game interview, Garnett famously screamed on the mic, “Anything is possible!” 

If KG had never made this move to the Celtics, he was at risk of having a ringless career despite his skills as an NBA player. Indeed, winning his first ring during his first season with Boston was poetic justice to KG’s career, which otherwise stands legendary with or without a ring.