"I miss Kevin, that's all I can say. He's not there and it's a big void for me."
Garnett's first return to the city he called home for 12 years comes tonight and, had he been healthy, he likely would have received what former teammate Mark Madsen called "an outpouring of affection unlike has ever been seen in the Target Center for a basketball game. There's a lot of love in Minnesota for Kevin Garnett." Garnett won't play, but there are plans to recognize him before the starting lineups are announced.
One thing we won't see - Garnett watching the game on the bench in street clothes. As he put it Wednesday, "Because I don't wear a sports jacket [and] sitting on the bench and knowing that there are probably 10 steps to the scorer's table to check in, wouldn't probably be the best thing for the NBA, especially with me."
Agreed Beise, "He'd be in Doc [Rivers's] ear in no time to get into the game."
Even though he won't play, it stands to be an emotional time for Garnett, who, until getting traded to the Celtics, had never played for any other NBA team. He arrived in Minnesota as a callow teenager in 1995 and left, a dozen years later, as the unquestioned face of the Timberwolves.
"He gave everything he had to that organization," said Garnett's primary coach in Minnesota, Flip Saunders. "It was nothing before he came. When people think of the Minnesota Timberwolves, they think of Kevin Garnett."
Star in the community
Beise would be only one of many familiar faces Garnett would see at the Target Center. For starters, there probably will be the two men who decided not to re-sign him and then to trade him, owner Glen Taylor and basketball operations chief Kevin McHale. There are the ushers, the clubhouse kids, and the other season ticket-holders. (The Wolves expect a rare sellout.)
