Kevin Garnett Cares Not for Your Rookies

Kevin Garnett has a reputation as a villain on the basketball court, at least to those wearing the uniform of the team he's going up against that particular night. While he's sometimes been criticized for taking things too far, It's understandable to a point, because in the heat of the game, it's not exactly to your advantage to play well with others.

But what about off the court?

When there's no game, the cameras aren't rolling, and no one else is around, that's when a person's true self is exposed, good or bad. And this little story about how Garnett treated a couple of the Pacers' rookies over the summer shows that his off-the-court persona might be just as rough as the one we're accustomed to seeing on it.

Garnett wasn't exactly welcoming to Pacers rookies A.J. Price and Tyler Hansbrough when he visited Indianapolis this summer to film a Wheaties commercial. As Garnett exited Conseco Fieldhouse, Indiana assistant coach Lester Conner asked him to walk over and meet Price and Hansbrough, who were working out. Garnett wasn't exactly friendly. According to Conner, Garnett continued to walk out and remarked, "[Expletive] your rookies."

Nice.

Now, Price laughed off the mini-incident, basically saying it showed where he was in the league's hierarchy, and moved on. But as one of the league's most recognizable veterans, shouldn't Garnett act like more of an ambassador for the game and less like a [jerk] in these situations?

He probably should, but clearly, he's under no obligation to do so.

There's of course the possibility that KG was simply having a bad day, or that his knee was bothering him, or whatever. But from what we've seen of him publicly over the years, the odds are pretty strong that the person that the Pacers' rooks encountered that summer day in Indianapolis was indeed the real Kevin Garnett.

[via FanIQ]