By Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com
      Kevin Garnett? Meet Bugs Bunny.
      I'd like to discuss Kevin Garnett and his war-like comments, and how that sort of commentary is simply an unmovable, non-erasable, maybe even integral part of the sporting landscape, and was before KG, before BB, maybe even before the creation of the ancient Olympics.
      But political correctness forces me to tiptoe as to not step on a landmine. ... (oh, wait, can I say landmine?)
      Anyway, since KG's pre-Game 7 bombshell. ... (can I say bombshell?) … there has been a barrage (can I say barrage?) of fallout (can I say fallout?) as Garnett has been bombarded (can I say bombarded?) with a firestorm (can I say firestorm?) of attacks (can I say attacks?)
      ESPN and SportsCenter have been especially tough on Garnett, different talking heads expressing their fake-deep sensitivity and their fake-deep patriotism by decrying KG’s remarks as “out of bounds.’’
      (Oh, wait. … isn’t ‘out of bounds’ a sports metaphor? If we shouldn’t use military metaphors to discuss sports, should we also not use sports metaphors to discuss war? Geez, I’m confused. …)
      Here’s what Garnett said on Monday:
      “This is it, all the marbles. I'm sitting in the house loading up the pump, I'm loading up the Uzis, I've got a couple of M-16s, couple of [guns] with some silencers on them, couple of grenades, got a missile launcher. I'm ready for war."
      Anybody got a problem with that?
      Well, Frank Schaeffer doesn’t. But what does he know? All he is is the author of “Faith Of Our Sons: A Father’s Wartime Diary,’’ and the parent of a young Marine who just returned from 11 months in Iraq.
      “We’re from Boston, so of course we’re sports fans,’’ Schaeffer tells me. “John was quite an athlete in school, and naturally, when we talked about his performance and his passion, we used war-like language, war-like terms. That’s the way we talk!
      “To say this is even a controversy, that’s a reach,’’ says. “It’s a very natural thing, using terms from war and sports. War and sports, those are two things that young American men have a right to be passionate about. It’s a natural mix. I’m certainly not offended.’’
      I bow to anyone with a military tie who is offended, of course. (And so does KG, who politely apologized for his statement the next day. Apologized – or, as yet another fake-deep SportsCenter head shrieked wrongly, “backpedaled!’’) At the same time, I would suggest that this gargantuan non-story recalls the fake-deep outrage some commentators expressed regarding sports-as-war talk in the wake of 9-11. I recall Sports Illustrated writing a blistering editorial chastising anyone who in the future would dare display such a lack of perspective as to refer to a long pass as a “bomb,’’ or to refer to the line of scrimmage as “the trenches,’’ or to say a game is a “battle.’’
      And then, I recall, came the Super Bowl. And Sports Illustrated’s terrific writers settled into the way we talk, referring to The Big Game with good ol’ handy and confortable war-related terms.
      “The bomb,’’ “the trenches,’’ “a gun for an arm,’’ “ Just because it’s politically correct doesn’t make it correct. Sensitivity plus common sense, that’s the answer. Otherwise we’d have burn victims protesting against the Miami Heat, somebody whose wife drowned picketing the Lakers, and a guy who as a young child once got thrown by a horse suing the Mavericks.
      Do we remember that when Bugs Bunny famously said “This means wahr!’’ we were actually at wahr? And how insensitive were the artists at Warner Bros., who after all, were only involved with a “wahr’’ pitting a wabbit against a doofus hunter, a pompous singer, a tiny Martian and a scheming dog?
      I will grant you, Garnett (and the rest of us) would be wise to issue a terrifically passionate monologue like his with some inserted perspective. For instance:
      “I'm sitting in the house loading up the basketball equivalent of a pump, loading up the basketball equivalent of Uzis, I've got a couple of basketball equivalent of M-16s, couple of basketball equivalent of [guns] with some basketball equivalent of silencers on them, couple of basketball equivalent of grenades, got a basketball equivalent of a missile launcher. I'm ready for the basketball equivalent of war."
      OK, it’s a little awkward. But would that make everyone feel better?
      It takes a certain level of zealotry and an incredible level of commitment to be a soldier. While I fully recognize the vast gap between the two, doesn’t it also take a certain level of zealotry and an incredible level of commitment to be a quarterback? A goalie? A boxer? An NBA superstar attempting to win a Game 7?
      When the University of Miami’s Kellen Winslow talked of being a “warrior’’ (and got suspended for it, thanks to more SportsCenter fake-deep outrage). … wasn’t he simply expressing his thoughts – in the strongest terms possible – on how it feels to be a tight end who had just spent three hours absorbing the mind-numbing and body-busting blows of safeties and linebackers?
      Me? I dig the passion. As much as I love Steve Nash, I was a little disappointed at his Mavs-Kings prepatory “It’s only a game’’ speech. “Steve,’’ I wanted to tell him, “I know it’s only a game. That’s obvious. To say so is almost redundant. … But we want you to approach it like IT’S NOT ONLY A GAME!’’
      Going over the middle to make a catch. Stepping into a 90-MPH pitch. Diving face-first into an oncoming puck. These things aren’t war. They are, however, the peacetime answer to war. They are how we test our “warrior mentality’’ when we are fortunate enough to not have a real war. They are as close as we get to war with just the outcome of the game on the line, rather than our lives.
      So Kevin Garnett wanted to go to BASKETBALL war. And I dig that. I wish people were less disturbed by the alleged insensitivity to our troops (who, I bet, themselves use war analogies when they’re in the huddle during pick-up football games) and more disturbed by KG’s specific references to weaponry (It took me a couple of days to realize that it’s not the US military that uses “silencers’’ but rather Chicago street thugs who do).
      I wish people were more into what the man is feeling than the words he used to express those feelings.
      And most of all, I’m with my man Frank, the Marine’s dad, who says, “I’m not bothered by the athletes who use war-like terms, because at least they show some awareness of what’s going on. The people who I’m much more bothered by are the ones who pay no attention to the troops at all.’’