As a lifelong Timberwolves fan who grew up attending home games during the Pooh Richardson era, I nearly cried for joy when Kevin Garnett earned his first of what will hopefully be many rings he earns during his career. It a joy that a great individual and team leader like Garnett–now in hindsight the indisputable NBA MVP choice–has won a title and showed up his critics who claimed he wasn’t a championship-caliber player in Minnesota.

While Garnett would be far too classy to remind you of a series of hit jobs from hack newspaper journalists in the Twin Cities such as the Star-Tribune’s Jim Souhan blaming him in part for the Wolves failures to win a title, I’m not.   Souhan’s utterly idiotic 2007 article painting Garnett as a Scottie Pippen-esque player unable to hit a big shot or win rings has stuck with me as one of the most classless and off-base pieces of sports writing to date.   Here’s Souhan’s now cringe-worthy assessment of KG’s legacy with the Wolves after he was dealt to the Celtics, in a passage meant to paraphrase what KG’s thoughts should have been after leaving:

“… My organization’s an embarrassment, but I have to take some responsibility, too. I never developed into a fourth-quarter scoring threat. I can lead my team in terms of effort and work ethic and versatility, but my team can’t throw me the ball in the clutch and know I’m going to make the big shot. When the Wolves signed me for about a billion dollars, they thought they were getting a Jordan. What they wound up with was a Pippen, and Pippen never won a championship when he wasn’t riding on Jordan’s cape. ”

I think it’s now time to paraphrase Jim Souhan instead:

“As a semi-talented sportswriter who routinely makes unsubstantiated claims and passes off poorly researched blather in the Star Tribune, I now finally see what anyone who paid attention to the Wolves without blinders figured out years ago, which is that Kevin Garnett has the makeup of a true champion, is a leader by example that makes the players around him champions, and that KG couldn’t get a ring in Minnesota because the blundering GM of the team lost 6 years worth of first-round picks signing Joe Smith illegally and never gave him an adequate supporting cast. Unlike any other Wolves fan with a clue, I wrongly blamed Garnett for the Wolves’ inability to get it done and now I realize what a boneheaded piece of analysis that was.”

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I wish KG’s ring could have been with the Wolves, but it’s vindicating to see him getting his due respect after struggling for so long and giving everything he had for the Wolves all the time. Congrats to a true champ, who even had the class to big up ‘Sota in his post game interview.