Popular music producer Jimmy Jam has been a devoted NBA fan for decades now. Therefore, he had a treasure trove of stories about the league to tell Marc Spears and Jay Harris during his appearance on NBA on ESPN’s podcast. But one particular Kevin Garnett story really stole the show and showed how sly the Minnesota Timberwolves had to be in 1995 to draft the highly pursued high school prodigy with their #5 pick.
Advertisement
The music producer recalled learning about the T-Wolves’ interest in KG during a bus ride with members of Minnesota’s front office, which was part of a Timberwolves experience that his wife had gifted him. The 65-year-old revealed how the Timberwolves wanted to draft Garnett but were hush-hush about it to not attract the attention of other teams picking before them.
“I remember being on the bus riding over to the game, they were talking about this player that was this unbelievable player, that, ‘You got to see this player.’ They’re telling me about him and it’s Kevin Garnett and I’m like going, ‘Wow, yeah, that sounds really cool,’” Jimmy Jam said.
The artist was then given insights into the organization’s master plan to select the youngster in the upcoming draft. The team would make it appear as though they were refusing to board the KG hype train.
To Jam’s surprise, this strategy worked to perfection. The team would shun away any comments regarding Garnett that would eventually leave the first few teams in the 1995 draft disinterested in acquiring him. This allowed the Wolves to secure the player they had been targeting all along.
“Every time I remember they [the reporters] would ask them, ‘Who are you guys going to pick?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, we don’t know’ and they’d say ‘well, what about Kevin Garnett? We hear he’s really good’. And they go, ‘Yeah, but he’s out of high school’… They totally downplay…The draft went exactly as they hoped it would,” Jam recollected.
Garnett would turn out to be the only player from the draft class to get enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. This shows how the Timberwolves’ vision ended up working perfectly for them.
Garnett had an instant impact on the Wolves
The Minneapolis side had never advanced to the postseason for the first seven years of the franchise’s existence. But Garnett’s arrival changed the team’s fortunes.
In merely his second season, KG took over the Wolves’ reins. The first-time All-Star would eventually lead the organization to their first 40-win season. This 6th spot finish in the Western Conference marked the first playoff appearance in franchise history.
Over the next few years, Minnesota would consistently qualify for the postseason. However, the team was struggling to find success in the postseason, suffering seven consecutive first-round exits. By this time, Garnett was being criticized for his leadership.
But in the 2003-2004 season, Garnett silenced all his doubters. Firstly, he’d win the MVP honors by averaging 24.2 points, 13.9 rebounds, and 5 assists per game. The team would also finish at the top of the West with a franchise-best 58-24 record. Ultimately, the team snapped their unwanted streak of getting eliminated from the first round.
Instead, KG and co. reached as far as the Western Conference Finals.
