Kevin Garnett Says His NBA Era ‘Could Never Play in a Bubble’
Written by SOURCE on September 23, 2020
The latest guest on Load Management was Kevin Garnett. You may have missed or mentally filed away the post from earlier but, hey, fortunately there’s no expiration here.
Amongst several topics discussed (more on that in a sec) the NBA legend talked about, as ex-players often do, the generational difference of today’s game versus the era in which he played. More relevantly to 2020, he said that his generation couldn’t have handled the league’s current bubble because things were just a little more heated in his day.
“To be honest y’all, we could never play in the bubble,” Garnett said. “You know how much I’ve been screaming during your shot ‘Get that shit out of here’? You could’ve heard me in here. Man they’d of had a bunch of censors. Couldn’t have all these cameras, you know, players walking around naked, balls swinging all type thing. That’s a different league. We were men, yo.”
From there he continued on the theme of how things would’ve been more entertaining combustible if the pandemic had hit a little earlier.
“We out here talking to each other,” he went on. “We trying to figure out the pick and roll. We ain’t switching, you know, it was just totally different. It [would have] been barbaric. We could have never been in a situation like this. It would’ve been chaotic (…) It would’ve been very difficult to put my timing and the guys that I played with and against into a bubble like this and have us not be like — we was high competitors. Everybody’s competing. Everybody’s damn near fighting every other play.”
Switching topics (but still continuing with the theme of the difference in eras) Garnett talked about how he wouldn’t have listened to trainers when it came to limiting minutes in playoffs. As he puts it, he just would’ve told the trainer to “shut the fuck up.” The topic was raised in relation to Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s playoff minutes. Anyways, this would seem to be an appropriate area of discussion for a podcast with this name.
“We’re under a different league now,” Garnett said. “And you know what? I’m going to be honest with y’all. I’ll probably get some shit for this, but no trainer’s going to tell me how long I’m playing. Once I’m out here, I’m out here. If I could play, I’m playing. Y’all pay me to play, so shut the fuck up and let me hoop. And that was the end of the discussion. There ain’t no more talking.”
He went on to say that a “training staff can’t tell how much heart you got,” nor do they know “how big your balls really are.”
Also discussed were his battles with LeBron James, his (very good) performance in Uncut Gems, and more. You can listen below or, if you like extra steps, click here:
