A Buckeye weekend for the ages
December 9, 2014
Cavs vs Raptors Behind The Box Score: LeBron’s Three Highlights Comeback Win
December 9, 2014The Cleveland Cavaliers played against the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday night. That means that they played against the trash talking, always maligning, Hall of Fame-bound and sadly declining Kevin Garnett. Cavalier supporters have seen a lot of Garnett over the years, most notably during the Boston-Cleveland Conflict of 2007-2010. This, of course, included the beautful and perfect “No regard for human life” call by Kevin Harlan.
This Tuesday night in Brooklyn, however, he was everything we thought he was, which is to say annoying and rude.1
This exchange summed it up well:
Slapping the ball away from Varejao—twice!—clapping in Andy’s face, yelling, spitting, pantomiming.2 It’s the brand of obnoxiousness that KG is known for.
People—that is, people who do not cheer for the teams for which Kevin Garnett plays or has played, and maybe those people, too—do not like Kevin Garnett. He is known for being some combination of unkind, unhinged, uncivil, and ungentlemanly. He’s a jerk, basically.
Being a jerk isn’t a bad thing in basketball. Kobe’s a jerk, and like Garnett, he’s an all-time great, although he and KG are jerks in very different ways. Garnett is a prick, but he’s not crazy. He simply embraces the fact that everyone hates him, and he enjoys making everyone hate him more. He laps it up like a dog in July. He’s a heel.
Kobe, on the other hand, has been called a sociopath, though he probably isn’t really a sociopath, although he does seem to enjoy being considered a sociopath, which is totally what a sociopath would do. Either way, like them or not, those guys are both great players and enormous jerks. NBA-holes, if you will.3
Joakim Noah is one of those guys. Dwyane Wade is one of those guys. If he were on another team, Andy Varejao would be one of those guys. They’re all a little different, but they share an innate hateability.
You need guys like that in basketball. It’s part of the game. Basketball jerks take many forms, from innocuous agitators to tasteless trash talkers to flagrant felons. For as long as people have been bouncing a ball and throwing it into a basket, other people have been elbowing them in the ribs and grabbing their jerseys. That’s essential, because they are the ones who wear the black hat. They are the villains, and without villains, there can be no heroes.
Imagine Major League without the Yankees. Shawshank without the warden. Moby Dick without the whale. They’d be so boring. Malefactors like Garnett make basketball more compelling, as the sport is little more than archetypal tales rehashed by very large men at tremendous rates of speed. Yes, a hero can triumph without overcoming a villain, but the most legendary tales are those with worthy adversaries. Think of Jordan vs. Pistons, Bird vs. Magic, Mutombo vs. English. Those are the NBA stories that we remember.
I hate Kevin Garnett, but it’s really just sports hate, and even then, it is a hatred laden with respect. He’s logged as many minutes as anyone, and he has been one of the most iconic players of the past few decades. You can dislike him, you can disrespect him, you can dismiss him, but you can’t say that he hasn’t played hard for his whole career. He slogged through the mud in Minnesota, unwittingly started the Big Three craze in Boston, won a championship, and is now spending his twilight years averaging seven and eight for the Nets, which is as sad as it sounds.
Yes, he’s done all of that with a scowl on his face. Yes, he’s done it while headbutting the stanchion and speculating as to the flavor of a peer’s significant other. Yes, he’s done it while sticking his knees out on screens and sneaking in shots when the ref isn’t looking and spouting enough foul language to make a nun faint. And yes, that’s all objectively repugnant behavior.
But on a basketball court, I’ll allow it. Emotion is part of the game for fans as much as players. To have such emotion, there must be players who inspire it, and Garnett is such a player. We need people like him. We need people like him so we can point our fingers and say, That’s the bad guy.
One day, and one day soon, we’re going to have to say good night to the bad guy. The NBA will be a lesser league for it.
18 Comments
I don’t know which was funnier Garnett acting a fool w/o a technical or the Cavs being warned for delay of game.
Maybe I’m being a homer, maybe not, but I would NOT label Andy a jerk and lump him in with these other jerks. Andy may be annoying as hell to other players and their fans, but that annoyance is pure hustle – a facet of the game that is greatly overlooked and underappreciated. Maybe it’s because that was the only was I ever saw the court when I used to play, but I relate to him. Until this year, Andy never really had another strong part to his game (I’m considering his money elbow J a strength). Sure he was a decent rebounder, but if he gave anything less than 110%, he wouldn’t have been on the court because he didn’t have the skill to make up for it. Same can probably be said for Delly. And I do understand why these guys are “hated,” but I still separate them from guys like KG and Noah (who along with ‘Sheed, probably make up 3 of the 4 faces on my Mount Rushmore of Basketball Jerks), and I’d like to think I would even if he wasn’t a Cav. I just think there’s a difference between “annoynance” and “hatred.”
that difference is likely rooted in the overall talent level of the player
Timmay doesn’t at least get a mention? He took call complaining to a whole new level.
http://i.imgur.com/PZE6sXO.gif
http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/article/media_slots/photos/000/635/014/enhanced-buzz-25384-1354477549-4_original.jpg?1354554659
I agree that Andy isn’t on the same talent level as the others, but I don’t think my annoyance turns to hatred when a player reaches a certain talent level, it’s when they reach a certain douche level. Diving for a ball or taking a charge isn’t douchey. Clapping in someone’s face is. So is untying another player’s shoes, and I would put JR Smith in the jerk group but he’s not on their talent level either.
what about blowing in someone’s ear?
or whispering sweet nothings right before a critical free throw?
Lest we forget…Rick Mahorn…Bill Laimbeer…
He’s not the whale, he’s Ahab.
Too bad about that championship he won, but at least his time playing on a relevant team was mercifully short. Hopefully he’ll be a Laker soon.
How about someone like Hansbrough? No talent, total douche.
Your point being that each woofing, chest-thumping, obnoxiously competitive Garnett serves as a fan antidote to Ryan Hollins, Shawn Bradley, Benoit Benjamin and hundreds of other pituitary cases who quietly cash their gynormous NBA checks as a birth right ? Ok, I’ll buy that.
(Note to self. Will Gibson cries when Gruber falls to his death in Die Hard probably)
Note to self: don’t forget to put Die Hard on the XMAS viewing list.
Ho, ho, ho. Now, I have a machine gun.
Agree. Andy is more of an irritant, a gadfly, rather than a mean-spirited jerk like Garnett. They both attempt to be disruptive but through very different means.
Easily one of, if not the best “Christmas” movies (as opposed to CHRISTMAS movies).
http://24.media.tumblr.com/db999a8ea0388acff3c3b61c3bffa849/tumblr_mtxmsbK62C1qcga5ro1_500.gif
He’s probably a Joffrey Lannister fan…
Well, in their defense, Joey Crawford is a complete d-bag.
He’s totally the hero, everyone else is watching it wrong
haha. “douche level.” well done, son.