KG = The Man

expr:id='"post-" + data:post.id' >

So I flipped on the tv tonight to check if the Celtics game was still on, only to see that they’d just lost 109-104 to the Oklahoma City Thunder. I took a shower, checked a couple other channels, and was just surfing the web with the Celtics post-game show on in the background. That was, until I heard Kevin Garnett say something to the effect of, “I thought we were playing against Michael fucking Jordan with the way he (Kevin Durant) was getting calls tonight. He takes more free throws than our entire team … that’s the game right there.”

At that moment I realized, wow, I need to appreciate this while I still can:

a professional athlete who pours every ounce of himself into every game he plays in, and who genuinely cares about the outcome, almost to a point that’s unhealthy. Paul Pierce was appropriately somber, doling out typical post-loss clichés, and it was clear that he was pissed too. But KG was devastated. He wouldn’t look up and make eye contact with the reporters in front of him. He spoke only in short, mumbled sentences, and he got up and left as fast as he could.

And the thing is, he’s like this after every loss.

It’s not like they just lost a Finals game or even a playoff game. This was game number 74 of the regular season, against a team that’s not in their conference, and that they would most likely not meet in the NBA finals if they made it there. Garnett was just legitimately upset that the team he plays for lost to another team. He was upset enough that he didn’t bother censoring himself on live tv. In the era of exploding salaries and egos, we see fewer and fewer professional athletes that care about winning and losing just for the sake of winning and losing.

Which is why I stopped what I was doing and watched the rest of the post-game show. Appreciate the Kevin Garnett’s of the sports world while you still can.