Recent reports have emerged that NBA superstar Kevin Garnett could retire this year after his current team, the Minnesota Timberwolves, initiated a buyout deal.
Fansided reported that the "prevailing thought is that Garnett will retire once he reaches a buyout" with the Wolves, the team he had played his first 12 years and the previous two seasons in his so far 21-year NBA career.
However, the 40-year-old power forward has yet to talk with team owner Glen Taylor to clarify his plans moving forward and so everything is just speculations at the moment.
"I have not talked with him at all," said Taylor, via ESPN's Marc Stein. "We have to decide, in the next couple weeks, if he's going to play or not play. I'm waiting for him. I sent him a message, told him, 'I need you to make a decision.' I just haven't heard from him."
Garnett, a former league MVP and 15-time All-Star, was drafted fifth overall straight out of high school by the Wolves in 1995 and has become the face of Minnesota and one of the most popular players in the NBA up to this day.
However, he won his first and only NBA championship thus far with the Boston Celtics in 2008 when he was traded to the club in exchange for Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, cash considerations, Boston's 2009 first-round draft pick, and the 2009 first-round pick that the Wolves had dealt to Boston in the 2006 swap of Ricky Davis-Wally Szczerbiak. The trade is still the current NBA record for most number of players and assets swapped for a single player.
Garnett came back for a second stint with the Wolves in February of last year, waiving his no-trade clause with Brooklyn to be reunited with former boss Flip Saunders.
Stein claimed that "Garnett agreed to come back to the Wolves, sources say, in part because he hoped to join Saunders in eventually buying the franchise from Taylor, the longtime owner", but Saunders' death last October said to have derailed all of his plans.
Despite recurring knee problems in the past couple of seasons, the four-time All-NBA First Teamer has started all 43 games he has played for the Wolves so far during this second stint, indicating that the franchise still deems him as a valuable asset.
