Kevin Garnett

In 2004, Garnett got officially married to his longtime girlfriend Brandi Padilla in California.

Kevin Garnett was born in Greenville, South Carolina to Shirley Garnett and O’Lewis McCullough. His parents were never officially married and after he was born, his father left his mother. She did the sole job of bringing him up.

Garnett attended the Hillcrest Middle School and started exploring basketball for the first time there but it was at Mauldin High School that he started playing in the school team.

Although Garnett was doing well with basketball in the school but an unfortunate event took place and he got into a racially inflicted fight. He was arrested for second-degree lynching. All the charges were dropped but he decided to leave Mauldin.

He got transferred to Farragut Career Academy, Chicago, and he continued his senior year there. He did very well in basketball and was named National High School Player of the year by USA Today.

Around the same time, he was titled as the Most Outstanding Player and to mark the 35th anniversary of the McDonald’s All American High School Boys Basketball Game, he was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald’s All Americans.

In 1995, Garnett was the first player to be drafted directly out of school by NBA Draft’s Minnesota Timberwolves. Timberwolves new head coach moved him into the startup line. Though not a superstar yet, he had a decent rookie year.

During the next season, 1996-97, Garnett showed improvement in his performance, which resulted in the better performance of the Timberwolves as well. He earned 17.0 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 2.1 blocks and 1.7 steals in total.

1997-98 began with the contractual agreement between Timberwolves and Garnett to remain in association for another 6 years. He improved and earned 18.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 blocks, and 1.7 steals per game.

In the next season, Garnett achieved solid success earning 20.8 points, 10.4 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.8 blocks per game, he was named to the All-NBA Third Team. His stardom started to take shape around this time.

In 1999-2000, too many controversies clouded the success of Timberwolves–– the free agent signing of Joe Smith was considered illegal by NBA. As a result the team was stripped off three first-round draft picks and the owner was fined.

He has set many NBA records - ‘Only player in NBA history to reach at least 25,000 points, 10,000 rebounds, 5,000 assists, 1,500 steals and 1,500 blocks in his career’, ‘Only player in NBA history to average at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists per game for 6 consecutive seasons’, etc.

Other awards include: ‘NBA champion (2008)’, ‘Olympic gold medal (2000)’, ‘NBA Most Valuable Player (2004)’, ‘NBA Defensive Player of the Year (2008)’, ‘NBA All-Star Game MVP (2003)’, etc.

The most prominent achievement of Garnett’s basketball career is considered to be his 12 season long stint with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the NBA team that he started off with directly after school. He led the Timberwolves to eight-consecutive playoff appearances.