By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Kevin Garnett shared his opinion on European and other international players in the NBA, diminishing clear progress and obvious contributions to the league.
The former forward/center went on a rant during a recent installment of the series KG Certified.
“Half of them MFs can’t guard. It’s two sides to the ball,” he mentioned, questioning the defense of international players.
“Americans will destroy any Mfs you line up,” he added, after also dropping names the likes of Serbian Nikola Jokic and Slovenian Luka Doncic in a seemingly calm but simultaneously heated conversation with Paul Pierce.
“International guys have brought a bunch of flopping to the game,” furthered the Big Ticket, moving into comparisons with his own era. “I can’t f–cking stand it. Every other f–cking up and down, they’re saying something to the ref. We got all this flopping and sh-t, man. We weren’t doing all that sh-t before, bro. I get it, it’s been some greatness, but been some weirdness that we’ve taken from them. I hate that narrative, ‘since international players start younger’. So what? They’re not putting out a better product.”
With a new All-Star Game format coming up on February 15 in Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome, featuring a three-team round-robin tournament and including one international squad, his theory will be put to the test. The recently-announced list of starters, which will be later split into three separate sides, went from Doncic and Jokic to French Victor Wembanyama and Greek Giannis Antetokounmpo.