Kevin Garnett’s Prep-to-Pros Jump Changed the N.B.A.

Garnett was widely doubted before he was drafted, but over more than 20 years in the league he reset the limits for N.B.A. big men and made a case for the Hall of Fame.

“Does the N.B.A. have no shame?” a Dallas Morning News columnist wrote in 1995 about the prospect of Kevin Garnett going right into the league from high school. Soon after, a Washington Post columnist chimed in, “If Kevin Garnett winds up leaving childhood for the N.B.A. without first going to college, then a whole lot of adults who claim to have his best interests at heart will have failed him.” That same columnist added, “The kid isn’t physically ready to play under the basket in the Big Ten, much less against Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson.” “It’s preposterous,” Marty Blake, a veteran N.B.A. scout, told The New York Daily News.