Front-Office Perspective: What it was like working with Kevin Garnett

The Vertical Front-Office Insider Bobby Marks, a 20-year executive with the Nets, details Kevin Garnett’s impact during his time with the Brooklyn Nets.

This is a confession.

During my 20-year tenure with the Nets, Kevin Garnett, who announced his retirement Friday, was the only player who made me feel intimidated.

Sure there were times I felt nervous, like training camp in 1995, when I was fresh out of college and shuttling All-Stars Kenny Anderson and Derrick Coleman across the campus of Kutztown University. Or the time I faced former Pistons bad boy Rick Mahorn in the early morning of a cold winter day after he locked his keys in his car with it running and the Nets in the midst of a losing streak.

I didn’t fear interactions with Coleman, Mahorn, Xavier McDaniel, Kenyon Martin or Alonzo Mourning – who I disliked as a Knicks fan while growing up in the early ’90s – but that wasn’t the case with Garnett, whose personality was still as bold as ever in the twilight of his career.

In the summer of 2013, Garnett, 37 at the time and with the Boston Celtics, waived his no-trade clause to join the Nets.

The vivid memory of sitting in the Nets’ locker room during the draft and waiting on Garnett to eventually waive the clause was a moment that got little attention but shaped both organizations in the future.

Before the trade, the only up-close interaction I had with Garnett – outside of watching him on TV or when he visited the Nets in New Jersey and Brooklyn – was a late November 2012 altercation after the Nets’ Kris Humphries had delivered a hard foul against him.

Though the Nets would win in a rout, sitting in the stands at the TD Garden in Boston on a cold November night, one could only marvel at the passion, heart and love Celtics fans showered on the player who had helped deliver a championship to Boston.

With the Nets, Garnett went from a player who was three months removed from averaging 35 minutes in a playoff series loss to the Knicks to a player whose body couldn’t hold up to what his mind wanted it to do.

Although Garnett’s court productivity didn’t mirror his past performance, the same intense practice habits, loyalty and first-player-in-the-gym mentality carried over from his days in Boston.

From his first news conference in mid-July to the training camp at Duke before the 2013-14 season, Garnett, along with teammate and former Celtic Paul Pierce, attempted to bring that intensity and championship pedigree to Brooklyn.

The one thing you did not want to incur was the wrath of KG.

Whether on the team bus, training room or in line waiting for lunch, Garnett always put his teammates first, even if that came at the expense of calling out a staff member.

While the bark of KG was one that staff members and sometimes teammates tried to avoid, it would be that same intensity that played a role in saving a life.

On Super Bowl Sunday in 2015, Nets assistant coach Jim Sann was in cardiac arrest before practice.

While Nets trainer Tim Walsh and his staff worked feverishly on Sann, it was Garnett, in the background with that signature fire, who was yelling for Sann to get up and fight for his life.

To this day, I believe Garnett, along with the Nets’ medical team, played a role in saving Sann’s life.

Though Garnett would eventually waive his no-trade clause again to return home to Minnesota in 2015, the impact that Garnett made wasn’t lost.

Even if that came with being intimidated during his 19 months in Brooklyn.

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