Kevin Garnett Says Moving to Suburbs Made Him a Better Player

During a conversation on the Hear District podcast, Kevin Durant says his basketball game evolved as a youngster when he moved from the city to the suburbs. 

When people think about the best players who went from high school straight to the NBA, they often forget that Kevin Garnett was the first to do so in more than a decade. 

The legendary center grew up in South Carolina and at one point moved to the town of Mauldin, which was more suburban than he was used to. 

Garnett said that the players he was facing off again changed drastically and that also changed the way he played the game. He relayed:

"The guys were a little more preppy; they weren't so aggressive. They was more basketball. They didn't want to get dirty. They wasn't really hood guys, they was more cleaner guys, which I could appreciate. But once we started playing, I started to grow a desire to be better than everybody that I was around. I learned the game and enjoyed going to the park and playing different characters there every day, having different experiences at the park every day, and growing my skills."

Garnett would play the first three years of his high school career at Mauldin before an incident at the school led to him moving to Chicago with his sister. It was in Chicago that he established himself as a major prospect and a player who was ready for the NBA. The Timberwolves snagged him with the 5th pick of the 1995 Draft.