Kevin Garnett has it all covered now, from prospect to mentor

You can trace a career's arc that reaches 21 NBA seasons Wednesday by reciting Kevin Garnett's enduring statistical feats — as he proudly has done on occasion — that fast approach 26,000 points and surpass 14,000 rebounds or by listing his many accomplishments that include a league MVP award and an NBA title won.

Or you can also do so by collecting Sports Illustrated covers that date to June 1995, when a gangly teenager's arms and legs announced the arrival of the first high school player in 20 years to directly enter the NBA with the headline "Ready or Not…"

Four years later, he appeared all muscle and menace on one that read "The Kid Who Changed the Game" after his $126 million contract extension forced a labor lockout.

Covers in 2004 bookended by new Timberwolves teammates Latrell Sprewell and Sam Cassell and in 2008 posed with Celtics legend Bill Russell and the NBA championship trophy followed.

And now here he is again, shown peeking around teammate and No. 1 overall draft pick Karl-Anthony Towns from behind. His presence there on one of the magazine's regionalized covers illustrates a lead story describing how he in Minnesota, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles and Dwyane Wade in Miami all are mentoring tomorrow's stars.

The league MVP with the Wolves in 2004 and NBA champion with Boston in 2008, Garnett is now playing a supporting role as mentor and example on a young team built around consecutive No. 1 overall draft picks Towns and Andrew Wiggins.

Six months from his 40th birthday, he declares himself comfortable with his place in life and in a league where, like all the good children of Lake Wobegon, he now aims to be better than average.

"I like to come in and when we're working, get work in. We can have fun later. We can have some fun. But I've never mixed the two. Never have, probably never will."

Contractually obligated for the next two seasons with his eye someday on ownership, Garnett is back with the franchise that drafted him all those years ago. Once nicknamed Da Kid or the Big Ticket, he is now a worldly statesman, signed as much for his teachings and the stories he can tell the Wolves' youngest players as for what's left in that 39-year-old body.

"He has a championship ring," Towns said. "I want one of those. If I watch the little things he does every day, I can learn what it takes to be a championship team and a championship player."

He played just five games after last February's trade sent him from Brooklyn back to the Wolves. Using the simple premise "If I can, I will," he decided over the summer that he wants to play more. Garnett struck a deal in July with Wolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders — the man who coached him for Garnett's first 10 pro seasons and brought him back last winter — on a two-year, $16.5 million contract.

Garnett relaxed over the summer and then went back to work to prepare his body for yet another NBA season. He is the league's third-oldest player, born two months after teammate Andre Miller and one after San Antonio's Tim Duncan.

"There's not a day I take off," Garnett said. "I take off when it's time to take off. That means when the summer gets here, I take trips, I clear my mind. Other than that, every day I do something. Every day is a work day for me. It's a lot of maintenance. It's a lot of keeping up. I'm one of the most disciplined people you can ever meet in life. I want to be something better than above average when I step out here on the floor, so I work towards that every day."

He vows there's plenty left, even as he acknowledges how time moves on.

"I've got days when I'm feeling unbelievable, and then we have a practice and I'm back to…," he said, his voice stopping. "So, yeah, I'm feeling OK. I'm feeling better."

Garnett is being paid like a starter — and he'll start at power forward Wednesday against the Lakers — even though he's not expected to play more than 20 minutes any given night. He played half of those minutes or not at all one night in most of the team's preseason games, but he played nearly 17 in a game at Memphis last week and went 4-for-4 from the field by halftime.

"I don't know, you have to ask him," Wolves interim coach Sam Mitchell said when asked how much production Garnett has left. "As much as we can get out of him."

"I would never think that in a million years," Garnett said about Mitchell now coaching him. "Never say never in this world. It's cool to be back here. It's cool to be with him as part of this journey."

Garnett is to Towns, Wiggins and others what Mitchell was to him when he first came into the league.

"A professional is something you don't get to take a day off from," Garnett said. "It's really a way of life. It's who you are. It's taking your craft very seriously, working on it every day, trying to perfect it, embracing yourself with the love and the passion you've had for it from Day 1. That's my definition of a professional."

He gets face-to-face with Towns and fellow rookie Tyus Jones, among others, during game timeouts, loud and incessant but offering encouragement as often as correction. After a morning shoot-around last week, he seemed driven to teach his young teammates the game starts at 10 a.m., not 7 p.m.

He does so because he knows what they do not and perhaps because he hears the clock ticking.