On the most recent episode of Kevin Garnett’s ‘KG Certified’ podcast, Garnett was joined by former Boston Celtics teammate and noted guy who’s having a little too much fun on these things Paul Pierce to discuss. an issue near and dear to the hearts of many basketball players: referees.
Whenever a group of former NBA players get together to talk about things in a public forum, someone will invariably bring up something that will make everyone laugh. In the conversation between Garnett and Pierce, the former NBA champions explained how – as Garnett put it – “old-school umpires talked crazy.” The pair went through a long list of older referees who had no problem hitting back at players who weren’t happy with them, and with seemingly all the names, one of the two would snap.
Pierce really liked Garnett talking about Hugh Hollins, while Garnett revealed that Steve Javie used to tell players he wanted them to try something with him. But the best, unsurprisingly, was Garnett telling the legendary story of how Joey Crawford – whom he called ‘a gangster’ – once gave Tim Duncan a technical foul for mocking him from the bench . I sincerely hope this leads to a long series of podcasts where former players spend entire episodes telling stories about the madness of former referees.