After the Timberwolves traded him, Wolves employees loved telling stories about Kevin Garnett's rage.
The times he took swings at teammates in practice. The way he glared at unwanted visitors in the locker room. The time he screamed at team employees over a subpar meal on the team plane. The behind-the-scenes tirades about losing, or a teammate's lack of effort.
The Big Ticket? Those who knew him best thought his nickname should be The Big Ticked.
Garnett arrived in Minnesota in 1995 a charming, eager young man. When the Wolves traded him to Boston in 2007, he was a superstar, with a superstar's ambitions and sense of entitlement.
What's important to the current Wolves, and especially Andrew Wiggins as he tries to become the second-best player in franchise history, is that Garnett didn't take shortcuts on the road to riches and fame.
For all of the stories told about Garnett's Hulk-like angry side, no one, publicly or privately, ever questioned his desire to win or to improve himself.
Thursday, the Wolves made what on its face is a strange move, trading a productive player in his prime, Thaddeus Young, to Brooklyn for a faded player approaching retirement in Garnett.
Being a terrible basketball team is liberating. Being terrible enabled the Wolves to trade their only All-Star this summer for a teenager, and to earn praise for the move. Being terrible has allowed the Wolves, winners of only 11 games, to rave about Zach LaVine winning the dunk contest as if it actually matters.