What 200 Million Plus Buys

As the occasional one or two readers of this blog knows, I'm no fan of the Taylor organization. What I'm hearing out of Europe from our dearly departed KG and from former Wolves, now Raptor head coach Sam Mitchell however is beginning to get outright irritating. It almost makes me want to be a homer again.

Witness the quotes from this morning's Boston Globe:

"But while visiting with Mitchell, now Toronto's coach, Thursday night, Garnett told his old teammate that the way things are done in Boston seems to be a lot better than what he was accustomed to in Minnesota. Tonight, a rejuvenated Garnett makes his Celtics debut against the Raptors in their preseason opener at the PalaLottomatica.

"I'm a little bit revived," Garnett said after yesterday's press conference at the Rome mayor's office. "It's good to be around excellence. It's cool . . . The organization, everything so far has been first-class. Obviously, the guys on the team [and coach Doc Rivers have] been phenomenal. In 13 years, this is the best camp I've been involved with by far . . .

"I've never experienced a lot of things that have been going on. But you can definitely tell a difference in the organizations. It's revived me, I will say that. I'm having a lot of fun."

and:

"[Garnett] loves being in Boston, loves his teammates," said Mitchell, the winner of this year's Red Auerbach Trophy as Coach of the Year. "He said if he knew the NBA was like this, he would have wanted to be traded a long time ago . . .

"I just think everybody does things a little different and he just enjoys it. When you've been in one place your whole career, you forget how other people do things and he's never seen how other organizations work. I think he's very impressed with the way Boston treats their players and how they do things."

Well, isn't that special? I would think after two substantial contracts one would not take outright shots at former management, especially when the first contract was a substantial advance for NBA players, if not KG's own pocketbook. He talks loyalty and old school values, but walks an entirely different path. Say what you want about Taylor, he took a substantial risk with Da Kid, and for awhile it worked out for both of them. 200 million or so later, he gets traded to a team that has a shot at doing something special. That is, if he's up to it. Whether he is or not remains to be seen.

Mitchell seems to be no better. Here's a guy that probably wouldn't even played in the league if it weren't for expansion, and who came BACK to the Wolves after a stint at Indiana. If top management was so horrible at the time, after "seeing how other people do things", why didn't he just sign with someone else? Was it the combination of Flip Saunders and KG that made the organization palatable at the time, or was it that he probably wouldn't have found a job anywhere else?

Maybe the two should just shut up, and thank God the Wolves organization--for better or worse--came along when they did.

In today's world, it's not revenge but gratitude that seems to be a dish served cold.