On the night Paul Pierce's third-quarter three moved him past Larry Bird on the Celtics, and the NBA's all-time scoring list, another number kept jumping off the page at me.
Kevin Garnett, whose playing time, knees and health have been more closely guarded in Boston the last five years thank Beyonce's room in the maternity ward (go ahead and Google it, crazy story), has played more minutes than any other Celtic through the first third of the season.
Whenpeople ask me about the wear and tear on Kevin Garnett, about the miles on thosetires (listen, strange questions get asked in the line at Whole Foods, just trying to pick up some soy milk and Quinoa, dude), I never really cite his MVP 2004 season in which he played a staggering4,015 minutes. (more than the 3,465combined career total of three of Charlotte’s starters tonight). I instead look at the 6,000 minutes he playedhis final two years in Minnesota, for teams that didn’t come anywhere near thepost-season.
One of the many reasons that later this year, Garnett will move into the top 10 in NBA history in minutes played.
Take a second, think about that. Top 10.
Now, thatproblem was quickly corrected by Doc Rivers, who rode him to an MVP caliberseason and a 66-16 record in 2008 by playing him a career low in minutes for any of hisprevious 12 years, including the 50-game lockout season of 1999.
Butinjuries to Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo have KG remarkably atop the Celtics’minutes played list, three months from his 36th birthday. It got me wondering (copyright, CarrieBradshaw), he has to be the oldest player in the league leading his team,right?
Heis, and it’s not that close.
JasonTerry is second (and only leads because of the injury to Dirk Nowitzki), born16 months after KG. Included is theentire list of players leading their teams in minutes played. The median age? 27, over nine years youngerthan Garnett. If Dirk passes Terry before Rondo or Pierce pass KG, Garnett will be more than two years older than the second man on the list.
JohnWall, the youngest team leader, was born days after Garnett started high schoolin South Carolina.
Notea pretty consistent correlation between the age of the top-minutes-playedplayer, and the team’s W-L record. Theolder, the better. Making the Sixersstart, quarterbacked by easily the most overlooked young point in the NBA, JrueHoliday, that much more impressive.
Kevin Garnett5/19/76
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