Kevin Durant’s offseason claim that an MVP trophy tops an NBA championship ring drew plenty of attention, and Kevin Garnett has made it clear he sees things the other way.
Asked on the Out The Mud Podcast which honor mattered more to him, the Hall of Famer didn’t hesitate to lean toward the title.
“So your patches and your stripes make you up, who you are,” Garnett said. “It’s what they’re going to remember you by.
When you get them awards and them All-Stars, those are what you’ve earned. When you get that Larry O’Brien, you and the guys, y’all came together for one goal and got this.
Not no one person did any of this. Coaches went into this.
Equipment man, everybody went into the Larry O’Brien.
“When you get them individual awards, bro, those are your badges,” Garnett continued. “Those are no different from the scar you got on your face, from your finger being f***ed up, your knee, wars marks that’s on your arm.
If I’mma pick one, I’mma pick one with the guys. ‘Cause you can do s*** on your own.
Man, do something special with the guys, man, that’s only gonna happen very rare.
“Yeah, give me the championship all day,” Garnett added. “They gonna know me anyway for these stripes and these battle wounds.
But yeah, what we did with the guys? Yeah, that’s between us and the guys.
That can never be emulated.”
That answer fits Garnett’s career to a tee. The 50-year-old was always a team-first force, the kind of player who made it plain that his people mattered.
He did collect an MVP in the 2003-04 season, when he put up 24.2 points, 13.9 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.5 steals, and 2.2 blocks per game for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Minnesota went 58-24 that year, and Garnett cruised to the award.
That same season also carried the Timberwolves to the Western Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history. The run ended there, with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers beating them in six games.
Garnett was in his ninth NBA season by then, after the Timberwolves made him the No. 5 pick in the 1995 NBA Draft. A championship still hadn’t come, and he eventually had to leave Minnesota to find one.
The Timberwolves traded him to the Boston Celtics in 2007, and the fit clicked right away. Boston went 66-16 in 2007-08 with Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen driving the charge.
He didn’t win MVP that year, but he did take home Defensive Player of the Year. Then came another trip to the Finals, and another meeting with the Lakers.
This time Garnett and the Celtics got the upper hand, winning in six games. After finally getting his ring, Garnett shouted, “Anything is possible!” - a line that still stands as one of the signature moments of the modern NBA.
The Celtics and Lakers met again in the 2010 Finals, but the rematch flipped the script. Los Angeles won in seven games, and Garnett never got back to that stage before ending his career in 2016.
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