The Story Behind Kevin Garnett's Legendary 'Big Ticket' Nickname

The "Big Ticket."

It's one of the great nicknames in sports history, and it belongs to Minnesota Timberwolves and Boston Celtics legend Kevin Garnett.

Who gave him the nickname? None other than Kevin Harlan, the great announcer who was the voice of the Timberwolves before blossoming into a household name at the national level.

"As all these things kind of happen, it was just organically," Harlan said on the Zach Lowe Show.

"The Big Ticket, I think he had just signed the contract, the gigantic $126 million deal, but you could just sense that early on, as (Kevin) McHale and Flip Saunders would convey to me, how important this kid was to the Timberwolves when they made the stretch, at the time they felt, drafting him, as they did, as a teenager," Harlan explained.

"Everything was kind of hinged on what they did, how they developed, and how they guided KG. And just for whatever reason along the way, it just, like, this is the 'Big Ticket.' This is the guy the whole organization is hanging their hat on. That's where that came from."

Garnett, drafted fifth overall by Minnesota in 1995, signed a six-year, $126 million contract extension in 1997. It was the largest contract in NBA history at the time, and many believe it played a role in the labor dispute that led to a lockout-shortened season in 1998-99.

The Big Ticket stuck, and Garnett is now commonly referred to as "Ticket."

"You don't plan that stuff," Harlan said. "If it happens, great. If it doesn't, it's a line in a game, and you move on to the next play."

Harlan, known for his passionate, off-the-cuff play-by-play skills, told Lowe that he's lived by advice he received from a producer at FOX in the 1990s.

"A producer one time told me, he said, the best content from a broadcaster will always come from something that is not written down, pre-planned, on your boards, but something that comes out as the game is going on and your feel and your interpretation of it," he said. "I've always kind of lived by those words. That was a FOX producer who told me that back in the early '90s. I've always kind of adhered to the way I approach a game to losing myself, being so focused and so immersed in the substitutions, in the schemes, in the flow and momentum, that it has served me well, and served more importantly as a compass as I go along in these games."

Lowe thinks Harlan's "with no regard for human life" call when LeBron James dunked on KG and the Celtics in the 2008 Eastern Conference semifinals is his most famous call. I could be misremembering like Roger Clemens, but I remember Harlan using that line on a KG dunk when he played for the Timberwolves.

"I may have said it once with Kobe on a dunk, maybe with KG. But the LeBron one came over a reigning Defensive Player of the Year, in Garnett, around a pretty defensive-minded Boston team, a defending champ, in a playoff game, that then swayed the outcome of that series in a big moment in that game in Cleveland," Harland said.

Anyway, the line came from the 1962 James Bond movie, "Dr. No."

"It came from a James Bond movie, and then it extended to our son's Nerf basketball games with me in his room," Harlan revealed. "Just joking around in his room. But it came from a James Bond movie, 'Dr. No.'"

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