It took the Wolves 4 years to come to terms with Kevin Garnett
With owner Glenn Taylor gone, Kevin Garnett has officially returned to the Wolves as franchise ambassador and “Da Kid” agreed to have his No. 21 jersey retired, ending nearly a decade of the Cold War.
The settlement comes after four years of negotiations between Garnett and the new majority owners, Mark Lore and Alec Rodriguez, who finalized franchise purchase June 2025. The date of the jersey retirement ceremony has not yet been announced, but the hardest part is done. We also know that Karl-Anthony Towns, today with the Knicks, has promised to be there.
“It was absolutely clear that one of the most important things we could do as owners was to retire KG’s jersey and bring him back to Minnesota.”Lore explains that The Athletic. “We had to repair the relationship, because he meant a lot to the fans and the whole community.”
Only one jersey has been retired in Wolves history
To understand how deep the alienation was, Kevin Garnett has only appeared at Target Center once since his retirement in 2016! “ Everywhere we went, not just in Minnesota but across the country, the one question we got from Timberwolves fans was: “When is Kevin coming back to the organization?” »reports Rodriguez, the former Yankees superstar. “In a way, he’s the Yankee equivalent of Babe Ruth. So it was necessary to go down the path of repairing this relationship.”
The owners invited Garnett to dinner at Lore’s apartment in New York in November 2023, where discussions about a possible merger really began. Negotiations then accelerated after Lore and Rodriguez won their arbitration case against Taylor in February 2025. And so 15 days ago we learned that the settlement was official and Garnett’s No. 21 would soon make its way to the Target Center ceiling. For now, the franchise has only retired one number: #2 Malik Sealydied in a traffic accident.
2026-01-01 12:32:00
