Jerry Zgoda's Sunday Insider: Garnett says, 'I've never looked back'

In real time, Kevin Garnett was traded just two years ago. But looking around Target Center, it seems like an eternity.

By Jerry Zgoda, Star Tribune

Last update: November 8, 2009 - 12:27 AM

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Not that Timberwolves fans really need to be reminded about it, but so much has transpired in these two years, three months and eight days since Kevin Garnett was traded away to Boston.

Garnett noticed it everywhere he looked around Target Center during his only return visit this season on Wednesday night.

"There's so many changes here," he said. "It's not even the same tunnel. So many changes that I can't really relate to."

Garnett now possesses that NBA championship ring he never approached in 12 seasons in Minnesota, and a second title might be within reach next summer now that Rasheed Wallace has joined him, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo in Boston.

Some Wolves fans still feel a connection -- and probably always will -- but Garnett has walked on since July 30, 2007.

"The separation was cut the minute I was traded," he said. "Some guys I made special relationships, they all left. And I've never looked back. Minnesota's a second home, a home for me. I still have some family here, but when a new situation opens, a new page in my book opens. I just try to embrace that. I can't sit back and worry about things that happened in the past.

"You just apply things that you've learned, and I think I did a pretty good job of that."

Almost all his former Timberwolves teammates -- Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell, Troy Hudson, Trenton Hassell, Ricky Davis, among the many -- are long gone, too.

The only ones left: Wolves vice president of basketball operations Fred Hoiberg and Darrick Martin, who officially returned to the team on Thursday as assistant coach in charge of player development.

"Freddie's up in the office," Garnett said. "He's corporate now."

About the only thing that's still there as it was when Garnett left is the banner in the arena rafters that memorializes Malik Sealy, Garnett's teammate killed in a May 2000 automobile accident.

"The only thing from the past that I can take grips of is the Malik banner up there," Garnett said after Wednesday's game. "I took a minute tonight to look at it."

Garnett didn't even recognize a Timberwolves team completely remade twice in his departure, and he had just watched that team on video hours before making the defensive play with 3.6 seconds left that won the game 92-90.

"We watched them on a little game film, and some of the game film was inconsistent with how they played tonight," said Garnett, whose team's 6-0 season start ended with Friday's home loss to Phoenix. "They played at a whole other level. It was good basketball. They're a young, exuberant team. Seems like the future's bright here.

"Someday I feel like a team is going to have to be put together for this city. Sometime, at some point, the basketball here is going to have to go to another level."

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