Kevin Garnett playing against former team, Minnesota Timberwolves: A look at musical memories and Garnett's time with the Boston Celtics
Jay King Associated Press
In the season before landing Garnett, the Celtics were 24-58. In the five-plus years since acquiring him, they are 282-129 during the regular season with one NBA championship and another trip to the Finals.
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Thinking of a certain song often brings me back to a specific memory I've associated with the tune. I don't think that makes me odd, but some of my mind's associations might.

Every time I listen to "Feel It In The Air" by Beanie Sigel, for example, I think of my best friend sitting at my computer in high school, dancing like a sick rhinoceros and belting out the lyrics in his own off-beat fashion. Every time I hear Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me" (don't ask), I'm transported back to my mother's car in fourth grade, driving to a CYO basketball tournament in South Hadley and pretending my best to imitate Dion's voice (embarrassing, I know). When Billy Joel's "River of Dreams" comes on the radio, I am seven years old again, watching my father's head lean back while he sings along at a volume loud enough to be heard several continents away.

When I hear Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" (which, thankfully, doesn't happen very often), I think of the day the Boston Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett from the Minnesota Timberwolves. I mention this now because the two teams meet Wednesday night for the first time this year.

A simple look at the teams' records before and after the trade can begin to explain how much Garnett has meant to the Boston organization:

(image via Sean Grande's Twitter page)

Obviously, Boston's impressive run with Garnett has been affected by several things which have little to do with him, including but certainly not limited to Boston's similarly-timed acquisition of Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo's emergence as a star. There are likewise reasons unrelated to Garnett why the Timberwolves have not made the playoffs since his departure, including but not limited to Sebastian Telfair never quite living up to his high school hype; Gerald Green not being ready to contribute at an NBA level; Al Jefferson's failure to round into a two-way star; Kevin Love's inability to do everything by himself; the Timberwolves' failure to demand Rondo's inclusion in the KG trade, which surely looks like a poor decision in retrospect; and, um, David Kahn. But simplifying things to their most basic level, Garnett helps a basketball team win games. Taking him off the Timberwolves hurt them, a lot. Putting him on the Celtics helped them, quite significantly.

Garnett's impact on the court is obvious enough, and teammates swear his impact extends far beyond what he does on the hardwood. We could rehash stories about what Garnett has done for the team's culture forever, but I'll instead share just one I remember reading a long time ago: During one of his first preseason practices with Boston, Garnett demanded that Paul Pierce run faster during a sprint. I don't know exactly what transpired after Garnett shared his advice, but I imagine Pierce immediately began working harder.

In the season before landing Garnett, the Celtics were 24-58. In the five-plus seasons since acquiring him, they are 282-129 during the regular season with one NBA championship, another trip to the Finals and one other visit to the Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics have advanced past the first round of the playoffs every season since getting Garnett, something they hadn't done in either of the four campaigns before he came to New England.

Even during the one season Garnett missed significant time due to injury, Boston won 62 games and ousted the Bulls in a memorable first-round series. Recently, Brian Scalabrine gave Garnett much of the credit for that team winning so often. Despite being injured, Scalabrine said, Garnett had breathed a culture into the Celtics organization which was not forgotten. Scalabrine guessed that Garnett, even out of commission, might have been worth 15 wins to that team.

I can't judge the veracity of Scalabrine's claims -- Garnett missed just 25 regular season games that season; plus, Allen and Pierce were still relatively in their primes and Rondo was just coming into his own, so those three all certainly had a lot to do with Boston's success -- but in this case, capturing the entire truth seems insignificant. A teammate gave Garnett credit for winning games in which he didn't play. That in itself is powerful enough to serve as a very good indicator of how much Garnett provides to a franchise.

At risk of abruptly transitioning from Garnett discussion back to weird musical memories, an explanation of the "Hollaback Girl" reference: I was working as a lifeguard at Longmeadow's Bliss Pool when the Celtics acquired Garnett. We had a computer in the lifeguard room. Despite not being allowed to use it for non-work purposes, I would check HoopsHype.com 457 times per day to view the latest Garnett rumors. I'm not sure if this was before Twitter or I just hadn't signed up for the social network yet. Either way, hitting the "refresh" button on my web browser every five minutes sounds a little excessive. On the day Garnett was actually traded, one of my fellow lifeguards had chosen to play "Hollaback Girl" on loop -- which was even worse than it sounds.

The boredom of lifeguarding can inspire weird activities. For some reason, one of the other lifeguards decided that every "Hollaback Girl" listen should prompt an abnormal ritual involving a flotation noodle, the diving board and throwing the most dry lifeguard into the pool. So when I actually found out about the Garnett deal, I was listening to a Gwen Stefani song being drowned out by the squeals of a lifeguard unwillingly being tossed into the deep end.

Somehow, these are the things we remember.