wolves/nba

He got past that in Boston and said, "I appreciate all of that and I will never forget that."

Weaker sentiment applies to Telfair and Ratliff. Portland took the ballyhooed Brooklyn prep point guard Telfair at No. 13 in 2004, two spots ahead of Boston's selection of Jefferson. When Boston traded for Telfair and Ratliff, Telfair said, "They saw something in me that probably a lot of other teams didn't."

He spent one season with the Celtics, 78 games, an eternity next to Ratliff. Lower-back surgery on Jan. 23 ended his season, after he'd played against Charlotte on Nov. 8 and Utah on Nov. 10, culling five points and seven rebounds.

Factor in a career that has spanned Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Portland, Boston and the Wolves, and Ratliff is used to this business. But for everybody else, as Garnett said of this matchup, "I didn't say it wasn't strange."