Kevin Garnett and the End

The end of an NBA career is rarely dignified. This is maybe especially true for the greats, if only because their careers are much more closely tracked and covered; their last declines and indignities happen before millions that remember them in their old invincibility. There are some players who fade with grace—those that, for various reasons, refuse to prolong the inevitable and welcome What's Next with open arms—but there are also those that defer and deny in pursuit of One Last Try at the all-important ring. The Los Angeles Lakers, maybe unsurprisingly, have recently had a near-monopoly on these players. At the end of their careers, Gary Payton and Karl Malone and Mitch Richmond have all looked awkward and out of place in forum blue and gold.

The end of a career comes, last ring or no. The decline can be slow, with each season bringing a gradual decline in skill and athleticism, or it can be sudden—one moment, the jump shot is pure, the next, it can't even draw iron. Athletes ask insane things of their bodies, and get insane affirmative answers right up until they don't. This is how it goes for every athlete, even the greatest, even the most gifted, even the most defiant—even, in these last years of his Hall of Fame career, for the great and gifted and defiant Kevin Garnett.

In his 20th season, Garnett is still competent, which is an achievement in itself, but unmistakably and irretrievably diminished. The most intense player of his generation, a competitor who never lost a staredown, is now staring down the cold end of his career. Those who watched saw it coming the last few seasons: his rotations on defense weren't as swift; his mid-range jumpshot, so often reliable, became an unstable crutch. Even his on-court roar, once feared, started to be mocked. The league's foremost bully was being laughed at.

Garnett has acknowledged that his time is coming, although that hasn't stopped him from being anything other than himself. He's still the antagonist, still eager to get under an opponent's skin, or even under his chin. While he's certainly not the player he used to be, and no longer even the player of a few seasons ago, Garnett could help a contender with 15 or 20 minutes a night; if he plays it right, he could do that en route to a second championship ring and triumphant exit. In a perfect world, he'd follow in the footsteps of Paul Pierce, who is enjoying an effective codgerhood as a crafty, floorbound third option in Washington.

In this world, though, Garnett is stuck on the sinking yacht that is the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets are a mess on and off the court, and a team very much in danger of missing the playoffs even in the Eastern Conference. There are no high notes to be found here, and not much dignity, either.

Garnett, if he wanted to, could ask the Nets for a buyout. He's earned the right, as he's served his tour of duty and done his best to earn his pay. Yet Garnett seems determined to go down with this ship, which fits. A similar devotion to duty has defined his two decades in the NBA; few players of his generation or any other have been more devoted to their teams than Garnett.

Above all else, above the screaming and the jawing and the taunting and near-fighting, perhaps Garnett's most defining feature throughout his career is loyalty. In Minnesota, Garnett refused to demand a trade, despite the organization's incompetence when it came to surrounding him with a complementary roster, and despite the fact that he had every right to ask for a way out. It wasn't until a perfect set of circumstances landed Garnett in Boston that he finally escaped purgatory, and Minnesota won a conspicuously early place in his post-title Anything Is Possible monologue.

Garnett's loyalty was admirable—you don't need to be from Minnesota to appreciate his dedication to an organization that never did much to deserve it, or him—and though he came under fire for his lack of playoff success, as all the great players seem to suffer at one point or another, that loyalty somewhat buttressed the criticism. He was, after all, doing basically everything himself, for a team content to let him do that.

That loyalty could also make Garnett a caricature of himself, even beyond the futility of his Minnesota-bound prime. He saw Ray Allen's signing with the Miami Heat as a betrayal of the highest order—never mind the fact that the Celtics were the ones who released Allen in the first place—leading him to famously delete Allen's number from his phone and refuse to acknowledge his presence whenever they met on the court. The two had been with the Celtics for almost exactly the same period of time. Garnett, as always, just seemed to have taken it all much more to heart.

All of which makes it that much easier to understand and that much harder to take that Garnett's loyalty keeps him bound to these going-nowhere Nets. As much as we may want to see Garnett end his career making a good team that much better and more Garnett-y, and using what gifts still remain within him with purpose, it makes a certain sort of sense that this is how he'd choose to go out. Consistency, as much as loyalty, has defined Kevin Garnett for two decades.

And, in that sense, more power to him. Garnett already has his ring, and so doesn't need to sign with a contender, head held low, just to get some extra validation to his Hall of Fame career. He'll surely join them in Springfield, but Garnett won't have to follow in the footsteps of Payton and Malone. He remains Kevin Garnett, with all the defiance that implies, and he won't let Father Time see him beg. He won't change now, because he hasn't changed, ever. When the fall is all that's left, how you fall matters a great deal.