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K.G. must make changes
 Bobby Hart -- Staff Column
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ESPN.com columnist Sam Smith recently wrote a story titled “T-Wolves Wise to Trade KG.”
In this story, Smith brought up the point that Kevin Garnett is making about $25 million this season and will be paid $28 million in 2003-04 in the last year of his contract. He also has the right, signing before the maximum ceilings went into place, to sign for a five percent raise on top of his $28 million. Smith stated that Garnett isn’t the player that can finish a game, thus the T-Wolves have been eliminated in the first round for the last six years. I see this as a valid point.
The problem came when Smith said that the Wolves would be better off trading Garnett now because they could get an array of talent in return, which would help build them into a playoff team. The only two rumors I have heard of, which were probably constructed out of thin air, I’ll use as examples anyway.
A. Garnett goes to Portland for Rasheed Wallace and Bonzi Wells.
B. Garnett goes to the Mavericks for Michael Finley, Steve Nash and Raef LaFrentz.
The people who think A is anywhere close to a good idea are probably the same people that thought giving J.R. Rider another shot in Minnesota was the concoction of some genius. Need I say more?
Option B is a little more logical. In this case the Wolves would get a solid point guard in Nash, an explosive shooting guard in Finely and a decent power forward in LaFrentz. The only thing that makes this bad is that the Wolves would be without one thing: a focal point. This is what makes Garnett so valuable and this is why we cannot trade him.
Every team that has found success has a focal point, though it may be hard to find on some teams. The Kings have Chris Weber, the Mavericks have Dirk Nowitzki, the Nets have Jason Kidd, the Spurs have Tim Duncan and the Lakers are the only team in the league to have the luxury to have two of these focal points in Kobe Bryant and Shaq.
Garnett has a better all-around game than all of those players (with an arguable exception to Bryant). But all of these players have a great supporting cast, Garnett doesn’t. He needs some help from someone other than Wally Szczerbiak, who can’t get any better than he was last season.
In other words, KG needs a consistently healthy point guard. The last time the Wolves had that was when Stephon Marbury was here, and when he left, so did the Wolves playoff aspirations. Sure, Marbury has struggled ever since and might continue to struggle for the rest of his life, but he was great in Minnesota, and he could thank only KG for that. However, Garnett doesn’t have the power to do the same for an old, injury-prone, jump shooting point guard like Terrell Brandon or an average backup point guard in Troy Hudson. McHale really blew it by not coming up with any sort of answer at point guard during the off-season.
Garnett has received endless criticism for buckling in crunch time. I believe that this problem will finally be addressed because, for the first time, KG is coming into the season with a scorer’s mentality, which has never been pushed on him before by Flip or McHale.
Garnett also has to make some major adjustments off the court to help the program. He absolutely needs to back up his claim of possibly taking a pay cut next season. I’m not talking about sticking with $25 million instead of taking his raise to $28 million. I’m talking more like going down to at least $22 million.
Everyone in St. Cloud got to see the extent of his wealth when the Wolves had training camp at St. John’s. He openly flaunted his bling-blinging diamond earrings and his custom Land Rover, while he spent time at downtown’s most popular bars and restaurants. Only after he does this can he complain about getting help from his teammates. It’s true that Minnesota loves him, but it’s time that he proves his so-called, “Love for Sota.”
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