Joakim Noah tells how Celtics legend Kevin Garnett changed his career as an NBA rookie

Noah’s ‘welcome to the NBA’ moment was a rude awakening at the hands of KG.

If you’ve ever heard the expression “kill your idols,” and wondered why anyone would say such a thing, you likely only have to ask Joakim Noah to get an educated guess at what might have inspired such a saying.

The University of Florida product grew up a massive fan of legendary Boston Celtics big man Kevin Garnett, and made the mistake of letting him know only to see his idol snarl back at him unthankfully. In an epic “oral history” of The Big Ticket’s career, Celtics champion forward Paul Pierce shared his recollection of that incident with author Howard Beck of Bleacher Report.

“I remember Noah looked up to KG,” began the Inglewood native.