Child’s Play : Kevin Garnett Should Be a Freshman in College, but He’s Getting a Physical Education in NBA

Moses Malone made it, but Bill Willoughby crashed and burned. Darryl Dawkins lasted 14 entertaining, if disappointing, seasons. Kevin Garnett is only the latest to jump from high school to the NBA and, like the others, he had to give up only one thing:

His childhood.

At 19, Garnett has a three-year, $5.6-million contract, a Lexus, a Land Cruiser and a job with the Minnesota Timberwolves. He’s not only competing against grown men--ever more spectacularly--but learning the Life too--the scrutiny, the media, the road, the callousness.

The game is the easy part. Dazed and confused for three months, he has taken off since the All-Star break, doubling his scoring and rebound averages. Indiana Pacer President Donnie Walsh says he has “a good chance to be the best player in the league some day.” That’s how it works now: The more he does, the more is expected.

Nothing is the way it was. Garnett’s coaches used to be fatherly guys in cramped offices next to the gym who treated him like a sun god. In Minnesota, Bill Blair treated him like one of 12 for six weeks, then was replaced by Flip Saunders.

Actually, Garnett wasn’t sure what he thought of Blair, but he had never had a coach who was fired or a teammate who was ripped in the papers like his buddy, Isaiah Rider. It was just another lesson in how the grown-up world works, suddenly and cruelly.

“Well, tell you the truth, I was just starting to build a relationship with Coach Blair where he understood me and I understood him,” Garnett says. “He treated me like a man as far as being straight, being very strong and firm in what he wanted and what he did not want. . . .

“I wasn’t really intimidated, but I sort of thought we weren’t really on the same page at first. Then once I started learning his style and what he wanted, he was gone, you know.

“That’s when I really found out that the NBA is a business and anybody could be sitting next to you one day, in the locker room. The next day the locker could be empty, so that’s when you know. I said to myself, I can make friends, but I can’t really get attached to nobody, you know.

“That’s really hard ‘cause you’re on the road and you’re seeing a person every day for six, seven months, 82 games and you’re on the plane--you know, you make buddies, man, you make buddies.

“Me, for myself, I know looking at people like Sam Mitchell and J.R. Rider, I have to see them every day, so I think it’d be pretty hard on me if they were to leave or whatever. It’s like you need some kind of friend.

“You don’t have to be tight when it’s all over. I feel like, just to get through 82 games, man, it’s a real grind. It’s a real grind, man.”

*

Malone, who turned pro out of high school in 1974, and Dawkins and Willoughby, who did it the next season, were pioneers. Garnett, 20 years later, was like the first ant to approach the potato salad at a picnic: There was a long line behind him.

A lot has changed. Sixth graders now travel to AAU summer tournaments. Teenagers, represented by street agents, recruited by high schools, junior highs and summer camps as well as colleges, are more aware of their options and less patient. Long protected by rules and customs that funneled them through college, the kids have declared a new era, converting basketball to a harsher system like baseball’s, in which high school players have always been drafted.

When Garnett was a junior at Mauldin (S.C.) High, he made a controversial transfer to Chicago’s Farragut Academy after becoming friendly with that school’s star, Ronnie Fields, at the Nike camp.

It was soon apparent Garnett had an even more controversial transfer in mind, to the NBA if he couldn’t make an ACT score that would allow him to attend Michigan and play as a freshman. Pro scouts began turning up at his games and marveling at him.

Pre-draft speculation had Garnett around No. 17--where Shawn Kemp went in 1989 (Kemp didn’t play in college, but briefly attended a junior college). Then Garnett had a workout that further blew scouts’ minds and vaulted him into the lottery. He became the No. 5 pick.

Suddenly, he was a pro.

There was the kidding. When players headed for a strip club in Vancouver, Garnett stayed behind and Christian Laettner joked Kevin’s baby-sitter could let him have ice cream.

There were the same questions everywhere Garnett went: Was the NBA too physical? What was the hardest thing about the adjustment?

There was the game.

At 6 feet 11 and 210 pounds, he might have been a prodigy in high school, but in the NBA he was too skinny to play under the basket. Struggling on the wing, he averaged six points, four rebounds and 18 minutes a game the first half of the season. Blair’s plan was to bring Garnett along slowly, and besides, the coach had another concern--his job.

Garnett, effusive with teammates and friends, grew a hard shell to present to the outside world. In interviews, he is polite but guarded. This is simply another manifestation of modern basketball; Garnett says the NBA didn’t make him this way.

“I know people don’t really want to be with me ‘cause I’m Kevin Garnett,” he says. “I’ve been what you call normal before. I know how people treat me. I know when stuff is different, so when I started getting ink and stuff started blowing up, I saw a difference. I been putting up walls since 10th grade.”

In December, Garnett complained NBA veterans were “old guys who fouled a lot,” and told USA Today:

“I’ve heard that there are high school kids who are thinking about going straight into the NBA like I did. Well, they’re crazy.

“I’d tell them to put aside all the money, the girls and the fame. . . . I’d tell them, ‘There’s nothing easy about the NBA.’ If I could have gone to college, I would have in a heartbeat.”

Finally, there was the blowup with Laettner.

Blair had been replaced by Saunders, club vice president Kevin McHale’s sidekick and the man expected to take over the Timberwolves’ basketball operation. Saunders made Garnett a starter, irritating the temperamental Laettner, who finally lashed out at the rookie’s demeanor, which Christian deemed unprofessional.

Laettner finished by declaring himself the franchise’s lone winner and, within days, was traded to Atlanta. Since, Garnett, two months from turning 20, is establishing himself as a front-line NBA player.

“First it started out kind of hard,” says Garnett, now averaging 8.8 points and 5.7 rebounds in 25.8 minutes. “I’m sort of used to hard things, expectations were great and everything. . . .

“I came in, I calmed down, I had patience. I stuck with it, I worked hard, I learned. I’m still learning. That’s how I’m taking it from now on. I’m finally to where I’m comfortable when I’m playing.”

Of course, there’s a question how long Garnett will stay in Minnesota. He’ll be a free agent in the summer of 1998. According to the general managers’ gossip, the Timberwolves, who face the Clippers tonight at the Sports Arena, are just getting him ready for the Bulls.

Scouts say there are no Garnett-level prospects in this year’s class, but one personnel director ranks Kobe Bryant of Lower Merion, Pa. “bottom of the lottery.” Two more high school players, Jermaine O’Neal of Columbia, S.C., and Tim Thomas of Paterson, N.J., are thinking of making the jump.

Thomas said recently he would call Garnett for advice. Garnett sounded dubious.

“You know how you play against somebody and, you know, it’s a great game for them but for you it’s just another game?” Garnett asks.

“You have people like that all the time. They say, ‘Hey, I played against him, I dunked’--all this other stuff. But you know, people’s insides are different, you know. My desire to play and your desire to play might be two different desires, you know.”

Garnett’s talent and Thomas’ talent are different too. This season’s prodigy is OK. Next season’s prodigies, if they dare it, will have to look after themselves.

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No College Prep

A look at the four players who have gone directly from high school to the NBA or ABA.

DARRYL DAWKINS

* High school: Maynard Evans (Orlando, Fla).

* Drafted: 1975, 1st round (5th pick overall) by Philadelphia.

* Age in first NBA game: 18 years, 10 months.

* First-year statistics: 4.4 minutes a game; 50% field goal; 33.3% free throw; 0.8 rebounds a game; 2.4 points a game.

* Career statistics: 14 seasons; 23.7 minutes a game; 57.2% field goal, 68.5% free throw; 6.1 rebounds a game; 12.0 points a game.

KEVIN GARNETT

* High school: Farragut Academy (Chicago)

* Drafted: 1995, 1st round (5th pick overall) by Minnesota.

* Age in first NBA game: 19 years, six months.

* First-year statistics: 25.7 minutes a game; 45.7% field goal; 75.5% free throws; 5.7 rebounds a game; 8.8 points a game.

MOSES MALONE

* High school: Petersburg, Va.

* Drafted: 1974, 3rd round by Utah of ABA.

* Age in first ABA game: 19 years, eight months.

* ABA first-year statistics: 38.6 minutes a game; 57.2% field goal; 63.5% free throw; 14.5 rebounds; 18.8 points

* NBA career statistics: 19 seasons; 33.9 minutes a game; 49.1% field goal; 76.9% free throw; 12.1 rebounds a game; 20.6 points a game.

BILL WILLOUGHBY

* High school: Dwight Morrow (Englewood, N.J.)

* Drafted: 1975, 2nd round (19th pick overall) by Atlanta.

* Age in first NBA game: 18 years, six months.

* First-year statistics: 14 minutes a game; 39.8% field goal; 66% free throws, 4.6 rebounds a game; 4.7 points a game.

* Career statistics: Four seasons; 18.3 minutes a game; 46.9% field goal; 73.7% free throw; 4.0 rebounds a game; 6.2 points a game.