Kevin Garnett Still Isn't Ready

When Kevin Garnett first sustained his knee injury back in February, it didn't look to be something that would keep him on the sidelines for very long. He initially missed 13 games, then came back for some limited playing time in four contests, before he was shut down by the team, but presumably only until the playoffs.

Well, we all saw how that turned out.

A few weeks turned into the rest of the season, and here we are -- about two weeks before the start of training camp -- and KG still isn't back to playing full-court basketball.

The Boston Globe is taking a glass-half-full approach to Garnett's recovery, but honestly, this report comes across as being more worrisome than it is optimistic:

"Kevin looks good, he's in here working out every day,'' Ainge said yesterday from the team's practice facility in Waltham. "He's doing his training, but he's not playing full-court basketball yet.

"We're taking it as slow and as cautious as we can with him. He's anxious and he has a ton of energy, but I think he gets it. We don't have bodyguards on him to keep him from working too hard. He's on the program with the staff.

"We don't have timetables on this. We are going week to week and we'll make a decision on where he is.''

Garnett may be "on the program," but even the most die-hard of Celtics fans don't seem to be counting on KG returning at full strength anytime in the near future.

Bill Simmons noted via Twitter that "If KG was OK, they wouldn't have spent $29 mill more on PF's," referring of course to the offseason signing of Rasheed Wallace, and the re-signing of Glen Davis.

Those signings definitely don't point to any optimism from the front office regarding Garnett's return, and certainly, there aren't enough quality minutes to spread between three players if and when KG does make it back.

If Celtics' fans are looking for something positive as their team heads into the 2009 season, it's the fact that even without KG, the squad managed to end the year with 62 wins, and managed to push the eventual Eastern Conference champs to seven games in the second round of the playoffs.

The Celtics are likely to be a top two or three team in the East, whether Garnett makes it back to 100 percent or not. But few would be able to sanely argue that the team can win a title without him. And with a roster full of aging superstars, that's really the only goal right now in Boston.