Nick Kyrgios, tennis’s throwback bad boy and die-hard Celtics fan, says there’s a lot he learned from Kevin Garnett
Nick Kyrgios says he’s never been to the TD Garden, but nevertheless came to age imagining himself as Paul Pierce and says he owns “dozens” of Boston Celtics jerseys.
He even got a personalized jersey from the team and celebrated his 21st birthday last month before a match with an apparently Celtics-themed cake.
Not your typical professional tennis player, but then again, Kyrgios never was.
One of the game’s most colorful players, both in appearance and demeanor, the Australian explained “Why I Bleed Green” in an article Tuesday for The Players Tribune.
The personal essay begins with Kyrgios in a Portugal hotel room last month, staying up until 4 a.m. local time to watch the Celtics’ Game 4 comeback win against the Atlanta Hawks on his phone.
Yet the 21-year-old Aussie’s Celtics fandom runs far deeper than this season’s playoffs.
My love for the Boston Celtics came from video games. Back in 2006, when I was 11 years old, I got my first NBA Live game on PSP — that’s the PlayStation Portable if you’re not a big gamer. I was just starting to travel a lot for tennis all over Australia, and I needed a way to pass the time between tournaments.
Unfamiliar with the cast of NBA teams at the time, Kyrgios ended up playing with the Celtics in the game because he “thought the logo looked cool,” but soon fell in love with the much-maligned 2006 team’s roster.
Paul Pierce was pretty sick. I think he was an 89 overall, and he had a unreal jumper. I fell in love with “the Truth” straight away. But they also had a crazy cast of characters — “the Red Mamba” Brian Scalabrine, Ricky Davis, Wally Szczerbiak.
Kyrgios compares his experience learning the game and the league through video games to modern American children who become fans of European soccer through the FIFA video game series. Similarly, the time difference between continents made for good breakfast TV on the weekends.
You’d be watching a primetime game with your bowl of cereal. Winter in America is summer in Australia, so once the game was over I’d go outside in the sweltering heat by myself and pretend I was the Truth.
But for Kyrgios—who has perhaps made more headlines for his trash-talking than his ascension in the pro rankings—the Celtic who most influenced him is fellow noted trash-talker Kevin Garnett.
“Garnett is like my spirit animal,” wrote the 21-year-old. “He’s my favorite player ever. Every guy wants him on their team, but nobody wants to face him. He’s so intense.”
Kyrgios says he learned a lot as a tennis player from how “insanely competitive” Garnett is.
“He might offend some people, but at the end of the day sport is about winning or losing,” Kyrgios, who seemingly would relate, wrote.
“Everything KG does, he does to help his team win,” he added. “How can a guy play in the NBA from age 19 to 39 and stay on top? There’s the only one answer. Competitiveness. Crazy, crazy competitiveness.”
Pictured last week at the Madrid Open, Nick Kyrgios has his Kevin Garnett impression spot on.
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