Kevin Garnett: The "Bargain-Priced" Ticket by Chris Wallace

There comes a time in every athlete's career where they seem at a physical crossroads. The mind wants to do what the body can no longer do, thus causing a sense of insecurity by the athlete and doubt in the fans who watch. In the case of Celtics star forward Kevin Garnett, this has never seemed any more apparent than it does now. In fact, one former NBA star went as far to say "It's sad watching KG these days." Sure KG is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, one of the league's best defensive players, an NBA Champion, an MVP and a perrenial all-star. His slender 6'11, 220-pound build that he entered the league with is now a 6'11, 250-pound frame that has endured more than 15 seasons of hard-nosed, play-every-minute tough basketball that has taken a mental and physical toll on one of the premier forwards of this era. Quite frankly, Kevin Garnett has proverbially run out of gas. There's just simply no other way to put it. Sure he's still a quality player on a good playoff team, but with his numbers in consistent decline and his physical skills quickly eroding, KG is becoming more and more of the next Shaq. And I don't mean a 25 or 30-year-old Shaq either.

I'm not sure if I saw this decline coming so soon or with such sharp a production dip but nonetheless, we're about a season away from some team asking KG to take its mid-level exception to play and take a sixth man role coming off of the bench. Those words uttered in the same sentence with KG should be against the law but as we all know, people find ways to break or bend the law. KG, however, won't be able to bend any rules or laws in attempting to find that fountain of basketball youth that once saw him completely overwhelm opponents with his offensive array of moves, his rebounding and his ability to play lockdown defense on whoever he played against. Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, a younger and hungrier Rasheed Wallace, Dirk Nowitzki, Alonzo Mourning.....you name em and he has defended them probably better than 90% of the players at his position in history. On this Celtics team and at this point in his NBA career, KG is so far removed from his MVP-like play with the Timberwolves that seeing him in a T-Wolves uniform in highlight films is like watching old reruns of the Cosby Show when Rudy was a little girl.

All in all, fans of KG should come to terms with the fact that he will never be the KG of old ever again....just, perhaps, an old KG. But even he still is better than no KG at all.....maybe.