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KG all praise for Aussie NBA legend Heal | 00:36
He is a former NBA MVP, champion, Hall of Famer, 15-time All-Star and Defensive Player of the Year.
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Kevin Garnett is one of the best and most versatile forwards to have played the game — and he’s a big fan of Australian basketball legend Shane Heal.
How big? Well, he rated Heal the best international teammate he has ever played with.
“Shane Heal, shoot that motherf***er.
“Before Steph Curry was Shane Heal, boy,” Garnett said on his ‘KG Certified’ podcast.
“Shane Heal had hands, you hear me? Shout out to Shane Heal, I don’t know what my dog doing, boy.
“GP (Gary Payton) thought he was going to punk Shane Heal, ‘Hey mate, I’m gonna hit you with a flurry of blows. Get you to think about it’.
“Him and Steph (Stephon Marbury) would go at it every day. Steph would come in there with that C.I. Brooklyn s**t, talking that s*** during practice, ‘Yeah son, you ain’t seen this though son,’ Shane Heal would say ‘Hey mate, I don’t know what you said mate, but take this three ball with you mate.’
“Shout out to Shane Heal from Australia dog, a real one.”
Heal played two seasons in the NBA, first with Minnesota (1996-1997) and later in San Antonio (2003-2004), where he played six regular season games with the defending NBA champions after signing a non-guaranteed contract.
Heal played 43 games in his time with the Timberwolves and recounted one particularly memorable run-in he had with Garnett when appearing on SKOR North late last year.
“I remember we had to play one-on-one, all the team, and there were six baskets and I scored on him, and if you got scored on then you had to move to the next basket and he wasn’t happy,” Heal said.
“I mean you get scored on (by) a 6-foot-1 Aussie you’re not happy when you’re Kevin Garnett. So he sooked it up a little bit as he went to the next basket.
Kevin Garnett had big praise for Shane Heal.Source: FOX SPORTS“Anyway, three or four baskets later we played again, I scored on him again and he got the ball and he actually just heaved it and it hit me in the back and it ran off.
“I chased the ball down and ran right up to him and I threw the ball as hard as I could right at his head and I remember we had a coach called Mike Schuler, he was an assistant coach and he had this squeaky voice, and he was like, ‘I told you. I told you. The Aussie’s crazy, don’t mess with the Aussie’.
“KG was great, he came up to me in the ice bath and put his arm around me and he said, ‘Sorry about that’. He was fantastic. He was passionate. He was energised. He just wanted to be able to compete on a nightly basis.”
