<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The trail of tears is plenty soggy already, one month into the Timberwolves' season. Everywhere they go, it seems, newspaper reporters and other media folks are making sure to do their woe-is-Kevin Garnett tales. Sometimes it doesn't even require a visit by the Wolves; just about every employee with access to a keyboard in Bristol, Conn., has posted his or her thoughts on Garnett's career in the past month, most of them predicting a meltdown by the Wolves' All-Star forward before the February trading deadline or imploring Kevin McHale to ship him to a contender. Generally, the rationale is to provide Garnett with a chance to compete for a championship. Every once in a while -- but not often -- a writer acknowledges that Minnesota and its fans might want to make such a move only if it betters the Wolves. (By the way, one of those national scribes dropped by the locker room in Dallas and, after boldly writing that Garnett and the Wolves should part ways, stood one foot from the player after the game. Didn't ask him a single question about his happiness or unhappiness, lack of hope, impatience to win or anything else related to the topic. But he'll probably quote some unidentified Western Conference executive next week as saying, "Garnett is ready to blow!" Uh huh. ) Sometimes the pieces are entertaining because some reporting actually takes place. For example, a Fort Worth writer spoke to Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki about Garnett. "It's sad to see," Nowitzki said. "A guy like that, that's working that hard and is trying to do all the right things, you hate to see him in a situation where he won't make the playoffs." When the Wolves hit Houston the next night, it was Tracy McGrady feeling for Garnett, saying: "He's got to carry the city. He's got to carry the franchise. He's got to make his teammates better. He's got to put up 25, 30 points for his team to win. When you play 82 games in a regular season, it takes a toll on your body. If you have to do that night in and night out, it's really tough, man." McGrady was that guy in Orlando and for a while in Houston. Now, with Yao Ming, not so much. "Thank God I don't have to do that anymore," he said. </div> Source
