Remember Kevin Garnett’s Rant About Uzis And Rocket Launchers?

Well, since we were just joking about Kevin Garnett’s relative lack of stability...

The exact quote:

Game 7, man. This is it. This is all the marbles. I’m sittin in the house, I’m loadin’ up the pump. I’m loadin’ up the Uzi, I got a couple M-16s, couple nines, got a couple joints with some silencers on ‘em, I’m just loadin up clips. Got a couple grenades, couple missile launchers, with, you know, a couple missiles. I’m ready for war.

Not even an ounce of sarcasm here: It’s stuff like this that makes me love sports.

At least once a week, you can count on a pro athlete to say something completely ridiculous and (usually) horribly inappropriate. If you take it in stride and laugh at it all, sports can be a pretty great antidote to reality. ‘Course, not everyone takes it in stride...

Like ESPN’s Mike Greenberg, who was VERY UPSET and WORRIED ABOUT THE KIDS.

As Greenberg wrote back then:

I have to make a confession. I don’t even know what half of that means. I’ve heard of an Uzi, but I couldn’t pick one out of a lineup. I’ve never busted a cap, and I’m not sure I know anyone who has.

Sorta wish he’d put “busted a cap” in quotes to make it extra condescending, but we’re headed in the right direction. Has Kevin Garnett ever busted a cap? Doesn’t matter, let’s continue:

If you don’t believe our young people are influenced by pop culture, try renting the movie “The Basketball Diaries.” Fast-forward to the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio bursts into a classroom, wearing a black trench coat, and begins firing away with a shotgun. I defy you to distinguish that image from what we saw at Columbine five years ago.

... Now, I don’t know if any kid in America took literally what he said about Game Seven. I don’t know if even the most impressionable of his fans will go out and get an Uzi because KG talked about it. But I do know this. No one could listen to that diatribe and not believe Kevin Garnett has an intimate knowledge of the subject matter. No parent or guidance counselor or pastor is going to be able to convince any kid that KG doesn’t think guns are cool. And no one is going to be able to convince me that SOME harm won’t come from this.

It’s a bad day in the sports world.

The symbiosis between the ridiculous athlete and the moralizing columnist is really a thing of beauty, and constant source of entertainment, if you’re into that type of thing.

And again: Kevin Garnett’s totally insane. Not because he got a little too real with the war analogies that athletes, coaches, and journalists make every single day, but because... He’s just that crazy.

But for the record: If it’s between the athlete that gets a little too theatrical and the journalist invoking Columbine and wondering aloud whether an 8 year-old is going to go buy an Uzi, I’m siding with the athlete. Still, it’s a hilarious cycle, and a nice break from the real world, where these misunderstandings actually mean something.

“It’s a bad day in the sports world.” LOL.