Garnett Rocks the Vote With Brushoff

Kevin Garnett of the Minnesota Timberwolves is expected to win the NBA’s most valuable player award, but at least one voter supported another player because of Garnett’s “rude” treatment of the media.

Lacy J. Banks, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, said he had planned to cast his first-place vote for Garnett until a fellow NBA reporter e-mailed to remind him that the All-Star forward never grants pregame interviews and routinely makes reporters wait long after games to talk with him.

Banks recalled that Garnett had turned down his request for an interview when the Timberwolves played at Chicago this season, even though Garnett was injured and not suiting up that night.

“I reminded him that I was the first NBA writer to interview him before and after he was drafted straight out of high school in 1995, but he still gave me the cold shoulder,” Banks wrote. “I always have had a policy of voting for the human qualities of an MVP candidate, as well as his basketball talent. I look at each candidate’s character, professionalism and willingness to promote the product of which he is a part and which has made him quite wealthy.

“All of a sudden, Garnett was no longer my choice for MVP.”

Banks voted for Indiana’s Jermaine O’Neal.

Trivia time: Who are the only two baseball players to win the Triple Crown more than once?

Welcome wagon: It didn’t take long for the New York media to rip Alex Rodriguez because of his poor start with the Yankees. “Right now Rodriguez looks like Enrique Wilson’s less-talented brother at the plate,” wrote Jon Heyman of Newsday. “The Yankees have to be wondering what their $112-million investment is going for, besides the $2,000 suits and $200 haircuts.”

If that wasn’t enough, there was this headline in the Post after Rodriguez went one for 17 in the Boston Red Sox series: “Alex in Blunder Land.”

Add Rodriguez: Yankee Manager Joe Torre said this to the Post about his third baseman’s recent appearance on the David Letterman show: “He had to follow Billy Crystal. I hit behind Hank Aaron for eight years, so I know how that is.”

Riding coattails: Rick Carlisle, coach of the Indiana Pacers, likes that Paul Pierce wears the same No. 34 he wore with the Boston Celtics.

“I know now that there’s a great chance my number will be retired,” Carlisle told Associated Press.

Cashing in: The Battle Creek, Mich., Yankees, a minor league team, recently planned to give $1 to every spectator who attended a game. “Everyone gives away T-Shirts,” a team spokesman told the Kansas City Star. “But this one, one size fits all. Who can’t use a dollar?”

Trivia answer: Rogers Hornsby with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1922 and 1925, and Ted Williams with the Red Sox in 1942 and 1947.

And finally: Randy Turner of the Winnipeg Free Press, on reports that Mike Piazza of the New York Mets bought his fiancee a $500,000 engagement ring: “Or as they refer to such a bauble in the NBA: a Kobe Bryant starter kit.”