North Star

The view from the back of the limo, it’s not always the way you imagine it’ll be.

Sometimes, you can’t tell if Kevin Garnett, whose jump from high school to the pros started a folk movement, is living “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” or an NBA “Stay in School” commercial.

On one hand, he’s ever more popular and accomplished. With Stephon Marbury and Tom Gugliotta, he led the Minnesota Timberwolves out of joke status. He has a largest-in-sports $126-million contract . . . which is an appetizer compared to what awaits when it expires in 2004, when he’ll be 28 and, thanks to the grandfather clause in the bargaining agreement, eligible for a $302-million contract starting at $31.5 million a year.

On the other hand, Marbury and Gugliotta have since fled, leaving Garnett to start over with new guys, parked on the cusp of the action, fighting for the No. 8 playoff spot, king of the snowbank in wintry Minnesota.

It’s no career for the immature or faint-hearted, but Garnett, a five-year man at 23, is neither. What he is is old school.

“You mean, besides the tattoos, earrings, cell phones, pagers and entourage?” says Minnesota General Manager Kevin McHale, laughing.

“Other than that, yeah, he’s old school. He plays old school. He’s one of those guys that just comes to play. Not afraid of challenges. Doesn’t yell for double-teams when he’s playing against a tough guy. He’ll say, ‘I want to play against this guy, I want to play against that guy.’ ”

OK, Garnett is the modern version, but he’s the real deal, a grinder who is especially adored by old hands such as McHale, Philadelphia’s Larry Brown and Indiana’s Larry Bird.

Forget Garnett’s scoring and rebounding numbers that trend ever upward. Check the defensive end, where only the quickest and fiercest, your Michael Jordans and Jerry Wests, compete at the same level.

Garnett will play this guy and that guy, all right. The Timberwolves put him on anyone from point guards like Jason Kidd to shooting guards like Isaiah Rider, power forwards like Rasheed Wallace or centers like Tim Duncan.

Last season, Charles Barkley called Garnett the toughest defender he faced. In their postseason series--won by San Antonio, 3-1--Garnett guarded Duncan and outscored him, 95-75.

In a recent victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, Garnett stopped Wallace on two late possessions, then faked Scottie Pippen in the air in the final seconds, stepped under him and banked in the 15-foot game-winner.

“Seems like he’s improved every year he’s been in the league,” Trail Blazer Coach Mike Dunleavy said. “Strong work ethic. Strong intensity. I mean, he’s got the whole package.”

We’re talking about the whole, coachable, down-home, has-a-clue, once-or-twice-a-generation package.

And boy, do the Timberwolves need it now.

Hello Darkness, Their Old Friend

“I’m not big on changes. Hell, I married my high school sweetheart so I don’t make a lot of changes. . . .”

--Kevin McHale

What happened to the Woofies, as they’re sometimes known in Minneapolis, affectionately or not, shouldn’t have happened to a dog or a wolf.

In its infancy, the franchise was visited by all that could go wrong: losing; outrageous players; owners who turned down a public subsidy to build their own arena, got hit with a mammoth cost overrun and, after hitting local government up for relief, tried to sell the team to a New Orleans group.

The days of the sellouts were long over when McHale, the local hero from tiny Hibbing, Minn., agreed to take over, on a temporary basis in 1995. A month into his tenure, McHale rolled the dice on Garnett, drafting him fifth (after Joe Smith, Antonio McDyess, Jerry Stackhouse and Wallace; of course, if they did it over today, you know who goes first).

Seven months later, McHale traded cantankerous Christian Laettner. Four months later, out went the confused Rider and in came Marbury, whose draft rights were acquired from Milwaukee after Marbury told the Bucks he wanted to be in Minnesota with his friend, Garnett, with whom he’d struck up a long-distance telephone conversation when both were in high school.

Then came two playoff appearances . . . followed by Gugliotta’s exit and Marbury’s demand to be traded. Coach Flip Saunders said Marbury told him, “Right now, whether it’s right or wrong, I have a tough time playing with K.G. when he’s making the amount of money he’s making and I’ll be making only $71 million.”

Nor did there seem to be any right way to play it.

When Gugliotta, a free agent, demanded a sign-and-trade with the Lakers, McHale called his bluff, turning down an Eddie Jones-Elden Campbell offer, which blew up in his face when Gugliotta went to Phoenix for less than the Timberwolves were offering.

When Marbury made his demand, the Timberwolves decided enough with calling bluffs and started over with Terrell Brandon and the draft pick that would become Wally Szczerbiak.

“It was a deal where, hey, he didn’t want to be here, flat-out,” McHale says of Marbury. “That’s what he said to us. He said, ‘Hey, I’m not re-signing.’ . . .

“That did catch me somewhat by surprise. First time I heard it was from [Marbury’s agent, David] Falk. He called up and said, ‘Steph doesn’t want to re-sign there,’ or something like that. I was like, ‘Wow.’

“Hey, unfortunately that’s the new NBA, the new thing where the guys individually have a lot of power. They can even become a free agent and say, ‘Look, if there’s money out there in the free-agent market, I’m just going to bolt.’

“As a manager of a team, you’ve got to make that decision: ‘OK, do I call the guy’s bluff? And if I do and he goes somewhere and I get nothing back, we’re going to take a huge, huge step back. If I trade him and we get a good piece and a draft pick and [are] able to keep building, you’ve got to be able to do that.’

“So that’s the decision we made. We sat around and there was a big part of us that said, ‘Hey, you know, the kid can’t be that crazy. That can’t be really what’s going on.’

“But then, at the end of it, we went through it twice last year, with Googs too: I’m not coming back. Googs didn’t want to play with Steph. And that’s the crazy thing.”

It was crazy, all right. They lost Gugliotta, who didn’t want to play with Marbury. Then they lost Marbury, who had come because he wanted to play with Garnett, but no longer felt the same.

When it was over, Falk congratulated himself on helping “Steph and Minnesota avoid an unpleasant situation.”

Remarked McHale, apparently unconvinced: “If a nuclear bomb dropped on earth, two things would survive: roaches and David Falk.”

In 1997-98, their last season together, Garnett, Marbury and Gugliotta led the Timberwolves on a season-ending 36-24 run to a 45-37 record.

In 1999, with the big three reduced by two, the Timberwolves squeezed into the last playoff slot with a 25-25 record. The struggle continues today.

Back to a Friendship by Long Distance

The worst part of it, Garnett says, is that he and Marbury were friends.

They were never hang-out-all-the-time best buddies, as the stories suggested when Marbury arrived. Marbury was a big-city, Brooklyn guy, Garnett a laid-back small-town type, at least off the court.

But friends they were. On the court, they were supposed to be the next coming of Karl Malone and John Stockton, until the aspiring Stockton started complaining about the Minnesota winters, the inferior local hot dogs, and finally, his friend’s salary.

The $70.9 million Marbury was assured of getting, he regarded as an insult. Other players in union meetings with him during the lockout say he was focused on a single issue--maximum salaries, or, in other words, his.

“Like I said, if I knew it was going to be money and so on, then I’d swap salaries with the guy, just so I could continue to play with him,” Garnett says.

“I value more our relationship on the court and the stuff we did do off the court, more than anything, more than any dollar value. . . .

“I was like, ‘Dang, I can’t believe it’s like that,’ you know. Especially when you think it’s another way. But you can’t let yourself get caught up in that. He’s still my dog. I still talk to him, we still converse about different issues.

“A lot of stuff’s happened, you know. We talk. I mean, it’s kinda good. . . . We talk a little basketball, but we basically talk more life, decisions, situations. If we are ever blessed to grow old and look back on this--I mean, we talk about stuff like that.”

Marbury is now stuck in New Jersey, on a moribund Net team. Garnett is starting over with Brandon, Szczerbiak, Smith and a young 7-footer from Slovenia named Radoslav Nesterovic.

No, it’s not the way it was. For one thing, 23 or not, Garnett is no longer one of the young guys.

“A lot of guys, they haven’t been to the playoffs,” he says. “. . . Two years ago, I was that young person. I was that guy who was coming up with everybody who hadn’t been in the playoffs. Now I’ve been there and almost like done that and now I’m looking back on guys who have never been there, almost like looking at myself in the mirror two years ago. . . .

“It’s not frustrating, but at the same time, you wish you weren’t in that position but it’s reality so you deal with it. . . . It’s hard because you’re accustomed to something special when you start making the playoffs and you know what that’s all about, but you’re not really advancing, you know? It’s almost like you’re hungry for that next meal, so to speak?

“I guess from that standpoint, I’m wishing that it was different, but at the same time, I’m happy because, just because this thing is progressing and we’re making strides. The guys are learning, but at the same time, you always want to be better off. Who doesn’t?”

Even an old-school player like Malone used to go off annually, when he sensed the Jazz (and/or his salary) was leveling off.

But after a 7-13 start, the Timberwolves are 20-16 heading into tonight’s game at Staples Center against the Clippers. And Garnett is special.

“Abandoned?” Garnett asks. “You have to look at all those words. Abandoned? Forgotten? Left out to dry, so to speak? That’s more ego talking than anything. I’m OK, man. You know, we’re winning, that’s what it’s all about. . . .

“You know what? It’s just understanding certain things in life are like that. Certain things happen in life for certain reasons.”

Two years ago, Garnett turned down $103 million, refusing to sign until the Timberwolves went to the $126 million, and was ridiculed for remarking, “It wasn’t about the money.”

Of course, he could have made the money anywhere. He chose to do it where he had friends, however cold it was, or distant from bright lights. Like McHale, Garnett doesn’t like change, either.

Two bumpy years later, the kid with the tattoos, cell phone, etc., is still a Timberwolf, through and through. This may be the new version, but it’s still loyalty, and it doesn’t come older school than that.

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Pulling Rank

Where Kevin Garnett ranks statistically this season:

12th: Points per game (22.9)

4th: Rebounds per game (12.1)

3rd: Double doubles (25)

4th: Minutes per game (40.2)

10th: Blocks per game (2.1)