Garnett undecided on playing status for 2016-17
Kevin Garnett is the longest-tenured NBAer still active in the league, but it's unclear how much longer he'll carry that distinction.
The 40-year-old power forward, who has a year left on his contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves, has yet to inform the team's brass of whether or not he intends to play it out.
New Timberwolves head coach Tom Thibodeau, who was a lead assistant with Garnett's title-winning Boston Celtics in the late 2000s, has spoken to Garnett since being hired three months ago, but hasn't gotten a definitive answer, NBA.com's Steve Aschburner reports.
Wolves owner Glen Taylor told Aschburner he had dinner with Garnett about a month ago, but didn't gain any additional clarity on the future Hall-of-Famer's intentions.
"I just asked him, 'Kevin, what are you going to do?'" Taylor explained. "His answer was, 'I'd really like to play next year 'cuz I'd like to go out knowing we got into the playoffs.' Then he said, 'I don't know if I can.'
"I asked him, 'What does that mean?' And he said, 'I don't know.'
"So I asked the question but I didn't get an answer that helped me. Yes, theoretically, he'd like to play. But he has some doubts of his knees holding up. I believe he told me exactly the truth."
Knee injuries limited Garnett to just 38 games last season, and hampered his effectiveness when he played. He averaged 3.2 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.6 assists in 14.6 minutes across those 38 games, all of which he started. But despite his diminished mobility and pedestrian numbers, Garnett remained an intelligent, versatile defender. Incredibly, the Wolves surrendered 12.4 fewer points per 100 possessions when he was on the floor. And that's to say nothing of his impact as a sage leader to an extremely young, raw group of players.
Still, Garnett seems unsure whether he has any tread left on his tires.
"I think he's worried if he can play," Taylor said. "I worry about that too. When I talked to him last year, I said, 'Is it your knees or what?' He said, 'It's my whole leg.'"
With Tim Duncan's retirement announcement earlier this week, Garnett is now the last player drafted before the 1998 lockout who has yet to officially hang up his sneakers. The final year of his contract is worth $8 million.