Celebrate the career of NBA legend Kevin Garnett with these two books

Two recent books look at the life and career of NBA legend Kevin Garnett. With his Hall of Fame induction imminent, now’s the perfect time to pick them up.

Kevin Garnett is not only one of the best players in NBA history, but one of its biggest personalities. Fiercely competitive and unbelievably talented, Garnett dominated opponents on both sides of the ball while finding ample time to headbutt the stanchion and yell a lot. With Garnett set to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in May, now is as good a time as any to celebrate his remarkable career and two recent books — his autobiography and another on his time with the Boston Celtics — would both be good options for any KG fan looking to learn more about this NBA legend.

The athlete autobiography is a well-established though often disappointing genre. It’s rare for one to truly stand out among the many disposable ones that are released each and every year. Garnett’s new book, KG: A to Z, co-written with David Ritz, is one of those very satisfying exceptions. One reason is that KG: A to Z is not presented as a traditional narrative. Rather than going through his life from childhood to retirement as most autobiographies do, KG: A to Z instead functions as an “encyclopedia of life, basketball, and everything in between.” The book travels alphabetically through dozens of different entries with Garnett giving his thoughts on disparate topics such as video games, Family Guy, Allen Iverson, Uncut Gems, the Book of Job, and many more. In a more standard autobiography, many of the detours taken here would be annoying, a distraction from an overarching story, but here, this format works to Garnett’s advantage.

The byways taken by him are built into the book itself rather than feeling like they are taking away from something larger. He writes early in the book that he has a “zigzagging spirit” and that he lives, remembers, and reflects upon his life in a non-linear way: “I don’t see a single straight narrative from start to finish. I see flashes, bursts, eruptions, and explosions.” In his book, Garnett does a great job of capturing a number of those flashes in a very engaging way. There are stories about Garnett arm wrestling with Glen “Big Baby” Davis, meeting the Notorious B.I.G. at All-Star Weekend, and watching a private Prince concert at Paisley Park and then going to grab breakfast together as Prince starts talking about chakras. Garnett also talks at length about his love for music and pop culture and it’s fun to see how much joy and inspiration he has derived from his favorite artists, and also occasionally surprising to hear him talk about his deep love for Kenny G and the Kevin Costner film, For Love of the Game. It all adds up to a very good time.

While there is much to enjoy in the stories and opinions he shares, the primary appeal of this book is less the information it contains than the voice it is delivered in. Coauthor David Ritz has done a wonderful job of translating Garnett’s intense and jocular voice to the page. Readers are certain to come away feeling like they just shared a wonderful time with Garnett as he regaled them with his personal opinions and favorite stories. For any NBA fan, such an experience would be a true delight and this book is the closest most of us will ever have to replicate it for ourselves.

The Kevin Garnett era in Boston started long before The Big Ticket actually arrived

Along with Garnett’s autobiography is a book by Michael Holley on the Boston Celtics’ Big Three era, aptly titled The Big Three, which looks at the years that Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen teamed up in pursuit of a long-elusive title. There has been so much written and said about the 2008 Celtics that it’s hard to imagine how any book on the team could be truly essential at this point without a ton of new revelations. This book does not have those, but it does benefit by Holley’s taking a wider view of the team — both its successes and failures — than previous chroniclers.

Rather than start the book by talking about the Celtics’ acquisition of Garnett and Ray Allen, Holley goes back to the buying of the team by Wyc Grousbeck and his subsequent hiring of Danny Ainge. By doing this, he is able to show the groundwork that had to be laid for the Celtics to get the assets necessary to trade for Allen and Garnett in such a short period. In this way, the book functions as an interesting document of how analytics influenced tanking and front office movements long before Sam Hinkie and Daryl Morey — making a cameo here as a Celtics employee — took over the Sixers and Rockets.

The book also sets itself apart and succeeds by furthering its scope to talk not only about the team’s triumphs but also the years after their 2008 championship when they tried, again and again, to win another title without any success. A combination of age, injuries, and internal discord — especially between Rajon Rondo and Allen — all kept the team from winning a second title together. Well, those things, and the dominance of LeBron James. In fact, the book ends up testifying less to the greatness of Garnett, Allen, and Pierce than it does to that of LeBron James who ended the Celtics playoff runs in both 2011 and 2012, and ultimately their Big Three era altogether.

In spite of its successes, The Big Three cannot help but feel a bit unnecessary. With Peter May’s Top of the World on the 2008 team, in addition to autobiographies by Allen and Garnett and Ian Thomsen’s The Soul of Basketball which has a lot to say about this era of the Celtics, the book struggles to avoid covering already well-trod territory. But in spite of its inessential nature, Holley does a good job of creating an engaging narrative and a book that will greatly appeal to Celtics fans in addition to anyone interested in the modern NBA.

Both KG: A to Z and The Big Three do a good job of celebrating the illustrious career and legacy of Kevin Garnett. Garnett’s autobiography captures his large and passionate biography as well as any book ever could, making it one of the rare books by an athlete worth intentionally seeking out. While The Big Three is not as fun or revealing, there is still much in it to enjoy for anyone curious about the way those Celtics teams gained success and then failed to maintain it. For fans eager to relive Garnett’s glory years, or younger ones who were unable to watch him in his prime, both books would be great ways to celebrate one of the best players in recent league history.