Chicago Gets Starring Role In Kevin Garnett Showtime Documentary

"A lot of people, like, think New York is the Mecca of basketball. Man, Chicago got a toughness about the city that, it's almost like a reputation that comes with it." — Kevin Garnett

CHICAGO — Our city plays a starring role in "Kevin Garnett: Anything Is Possible," set to debut on Showtime Friday — and in the metamorphosis of a South Carolina kid's epic journey to the NBA Hall of Fame.

The documentary — produced by my filmmaking pals at Blowback Productions — offers a glimpse of how Garnett's single season at Farragut Academy alongside fellow high school phenom Ronnie Fields, under the tutelage of coach William "Wolf" Nelson, changed the course of his life in a way no other city could.

Garnett arrived on the South Side at the perfect time to become a local star. In 1995, Michael Jordan had retired. The Hawks, Bears, Cubs and Sox stunk. Farragut's basketball squad was the biggest game in town. Scalpers sold $5 tickets for 50 bucks. Suburbanites, including Chicago Sky star Candace Parker's family, went to games to watch Fields and Garnett dominate on the court.

Coach Nelson was the guy who encouraged Garnett to start bringing the ball up court like a point guard, and play with palpable emotion that became a signature style of the NBA All-Star's game.

"Next time you dunk, scream," was Nelson's very South Side advice back then, Garnett said. "Wolf wanted … more personality to come out. He wanted that animal. 'You mad? Well, show 'em you mad.'"

Fields, who had his basketball dreams derailed due to a car crash his senior year, told me there's no doubt playing ball in Chicago changed Garnett's game.

"Chicago was an adjustment for Kevin. He was a laid back, quiet guy when he got here. Then, he got to see how physical Chicago guys play. That honed his attitude to be aggressive and play more physically," Fields said. "Being around a lot of Chicago guys helped bring that out of Kevin."

And if not for his time in Chicago, Garnett might not have sneaked his way into a fateful pick-up game with his heroes, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, as Isiah Thomas — then part owner of the Toronto Raptors — looked on from the sidelines.

That's where Thomas told Garnett, "I just saw you play Scottie Pippen. Boy, you can play in the league, right now."

"When he said that, the world stopped," Garnett says in the film.

Later that year, Garnett's time in Chicago ended when the Minnesota Timberwolves used the fifth pick in the NBA Draft to make Garnett the first high school player in 20 years to go straight to the pros.

There's more to Garnett's story, of course, that you can watch on Showtime.

But for this Bulls fan, the best part of the Hall of Famer's tale remains that one special year when Michael Jordan was on a minor league baseball bus and high school basketball was king.

It was here that a skinny 6-foot-11 high school senior from South Carolina learned to play with Chicago toughness — and that made all the difference.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots."

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