The Celtics retired Garnett’s No. 5 NBA jersey, when will the Timberwolves retire his No. 21 jersey?
In fact, not the Timberwolves do not retire, is Garnett himself is not happy to retire, because he and the Timberwolves owner Glenn Taylor contradictions (in fact, Taylor is no longer considered the Timberwolves boss, but need a two-year transition period to all handover, and for the convenience of the line, the following temporary still to the boss called).
After Garnett’s retirement in 2016, the Timberwolves did mention it, but needed to seek Garnett’s own consent, and Garnett gave the response, “It’s not sincere, Taylor was just forced to do it because of the tremendous pressure from the fans.” So there was no refund. The matter just kept dragging on. But and the Celtics happily set the date to retire his No. 5 jersey early on.
So, Garnett is advanced Hall of Fame, after retiring the jersey, not much.
The conflict between him and Taylor, apart from the well-known incident of the failed acquisition of the team, in fact, there is a long-standing feud between the two.
Taylor spent $88 million to buy the Timberwolves in 1994. The Timberwolves were an emerging team that joined the NBA only in the 1989-90 season, and at the beginning of the team’s construction, they could not feel the way to win at all, and they were always at the bottom of the record list, and they were the brisket of the brisket, from 1990 to 1995, their worst record was 15 wins and 67 losses, and their best record was only 29 wins and 53 losses. In short, the hope of entering the playoffs was far away.
Garnett, who wore the No. 21 uniform, came off the bench for a few games in his rookie season and began to rise to the top when the original boss, Leitner, left the team and was named to the rookie second-team. Although the team’s record of 26 wins and 56 losses is not ideal, but at least ended the team’s embarrassing record of four consecutive losing seasons of at least 60 games, and everyone saw the light of redemption from Garnett.
The next year, the team picked Marbury, and high school friends Garnett to form a twin, the two young people emerged from the team immediately out of the mire of struggle for many years, with 40 wins and 42 losses to an unprecedented record to kill the playoffs, but unfortunately the first round was swept by the Rockets, but enough to make Garnett in the next negotiations to have enough confidence and leverage.
In October 1997, Garnett started a dialogue with the team about a contract extension.
Garnett’s agent was very strong, ate Taylor’s mind, bullying “favor” to act fiercely, because Garnett is already Minnesota’s new favorite, the lion asked for 6 years 135 million dollars, Taylor could not accept, the two sides tug of war, tug of war.
The contract system and collective bargaining agreement were not perfect at the time, and players were signing chaotic contracts. before 1991, the top NBA players were paid just over two million a year, for example, Jordan 2.5 million, Magic 2.4 million and David Robinson 2.27 million. Then the TV contract came into effect and the public outcry when 1991 first-round pick Larry Johnson signed a big 12-year, $110 million contract without playing a single game.
The stars demanded a salary increase, so the next thing that happened was a variety of bizarre huge contract signings, such as 93 first-round pick Webber’s 15-year, $74 million, 94 first-round pick Big Dog Robinson’s 10-year, $68 million, and 94 top pick Kidd’s 9-year, $60 million. The intolerant owners of the 1995 All-Star period to amend the collective bargaining agreement, the provisions of the rookie players to enter the league after the amount of salary determined by the draft order, the first-round picks to sign a 2 +1 contract, two years before you can sign a large contract. But this trick to cure the symptoms, salaries still skyrocketed, the summer of 1996 and 1997, the signing of large contracts of astronomical prices are still frequent, such as Juwan Howard 7 years 105 million, Mourning 7 years 110 million, O’Neal 7 years 121 million, Kemp 7 years 107 million. Garnett is exactly riding this shareholder wind with the boss to ask for a high price.
Taylor is also by no means a light, he is from a young printing factory owner to a state legislator and Forbes list of guests enough to see its wrist hard, but he really can not resist Garnett agent blackmail, the price cut to 6 years 126 million, Garnett agreed to sign.
But in this negotiation aggrieved Taylor then disclosed the details of the signing to the media, trying to portray Garnett as a selfish image, trying to “sanction” Garnett with the power of public opinion.
Garnett’s astronomical contract this to the NBA bosses scared, the future under the hands of the stars to this set, then it is still? It is simply not decent? There is no decency, so let’s make a decency.
In 1998, before the rookie contract of the class of 1996 expired in the summer, 29 owners and the players union on the labor agreement “friendly” negotiations, the result, as you know, a 7-month lockout, resulting in a reduced season; rookie contract and redo the strict norms, the main idea is: the player’s maximum salary is determined by the length of service, just play two years of rookie Only can take 6 years 70.9 million dollars of the top salary. This includes the 96 golden generation of Marbury
In the 1997-1998 season, Marbury and Garnett teamed up to make the playoffs again, but were eliminated in the first round by the Seattle Supersonics (the predecessor of the Oklahoma City Thunder), 3-2.
In the summer of 1998, Marbury signed a six-year, $70.9 million deal with the Timberwolves, but by mid-season, he personally approached the owner seeking a trade, and Tyler made it happen, trading him to his hometown New Jersey Nets.
As for the reason for leaving, the rumor is that Mabry is dissatisfied with the salary, because of jealousy Garnett, turned against him, but Mabry early on this is tight-lipped, but later in the program interview could not resist the truth, the reason is: one, Minnesota is too cold. Two, Minnesota black less white more. Three, disappointed with two consecutive years of round trips.
Whether or not Mabry is not sincere or hiding the truth, the world is willing to believe that his departure is definitely not that simple, because an untamed lone wolf does not want to be the second behind others and determined to leave without looking back, such a story is too in line with the tone of Hollywood heroic narrative.
In short, once Mabry left, Garnett lost his best helper in the Timberwolves, after the team lineup left like a carp, but few of them can really assist Garnett to achieve great things.
Garnett, who has grown to be the absolute core of the team and has a voice, has a lot to say about the operation of Tyler’s first class management, but his large contract occupies the space, largely making the team lose the flexibility to operate.
Until the 2003-04 season, Garnett ushered in the peak, won the regular season MVP, and Sprewell, Cassell formed a three-headed monster, all the way through the Nuggets and Kings, the unprecedented Western Conference, Garnett’s personal reputation and honor have reached the peak, but the Western Conference was a failure, 2-4 defeat to the Lakers with F4.
Garnett got a championship in the Celtics, and played a few seasons in the Nets, round and round, has returned to the Timberwolves mentor Sanders a phone call and called him back, Taylor held a welcome attitude.
Garnett has made a name for himself and is in his twilight years. What could be more poetic and warm than returning to the place where his dream began at the end of his career? This is one reason why he went back, the other reason is that Sanders gave Garnett a promise of interest in that phone call, saying that Garnett would be allowed to enter management and get shares in the team after retirement. Garnett returned gladly.
But the world is unpredictable, in 2015, the old marshal Sanders died of illness, this side of Garnett sitting in the garage gloomy, that side of Taylor changed his mind, after all, the verbal agreement on the phone is too non-binding, especially Taylor a businessman, profit light businessman, the night pillow on the eye grunt a turn, so a weighing, a turn over work are not needed, is to turn the hand for the cloud The thing that overturned the hand for the rain, the interest field is not surprising.
After retirement, Garnett in his new book still on the matter is difficult to be satisfied, he said meritorious players deserve to get 20% of the shares.
Then later, that is, in recent years, Taylor has the intention to sell the team, Garnett heard the news, long-sleeved, formed a consortium with 1.2 billion in financial strength, but Taylor does not sell this generation of legendary Hall of Fame players, because he a Minnesota native very opposed to Garnett to take the Timberwolves out of Minnesota conditions, so Garnett’s plan expectedly fell through, the two also went to court for this.
In 2021, after learning that Taylor had sold the team to e-commerce giant Mark Lowe and retired baseball star Alex Rodriguez for $1.5 billion, Garnett was furious.
So the relationship between Garnett and Taylor has dropped to the freezing point, and the retirement of Garnett’s No. 21 jersey has been delayed.
In the future, Garnett’s No. 21 jersey will be retired under what kind of opportunity, and whether he and Taylor can laugh off their grudge, and will become a new topic of concern.