Last summer, I asked an NBA coach who — among other coaches and players — was the most disliked player in the NBA.

"Kevin Garnett," he said without blinking. 

Who, I wondered, was second on the list?

"Everyone else is tied," he deadpanned before walking away. 

Which leads me to the question of the day: Is Kevin Garnett a punk? 

We'll get to that, but first a confession: I'm enjoying this. Until now, the title of Most Hated Man in Basketball has never definitively been around the waist of a member of the Celtics. At least not in my lifetime. OK, Danny Ainge was close — but was he absolutely more hated than, say, Bill Laimbeer? No shot. Plus this: Ainge was a nice player, but a complementary guy. Maybe the fifth-best player on the Celtics at his peak of villainy. That doesn't work. The truly hated are almost always great. Think about it. A-Rod, Clemens, Kobe, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, even Bill Belichick and (gasp) Tom Brady. All Hall of Famers (or have Hall of Fame numbers). 

And now Kevin Garnett. 

It's true. He's the man now. It's complete. NBA Public Enemy Numero Uno. Ask Phil Jackson. Or Alvin Gentry. Or Channing Frye. How about Charlie Villanueva? Or Andrew Bogut? Bogut's not good enough, you need an All-Star center? I'll give you Dwight Howard.

And Garnett — who would never be a candidate if the NBA had a version of the Lady Byng Trophy — has kicked it up a gear in 2010-11. All those names in the above paragraph have criticized Garnett for what he has done this season. It almost seems to me as if he's embracing the role of the league's top heel. Trash talking? Yup. Throwing elbows? You bet. South of the border contact? Confirmed. Staggering overreactions to hard but clean fouls? Done and done. 

Here's the thing, though: Garnett — to his eternal credit — has no interest trying to rehabilitate his public image. None. Nothing would be more vomit-inducing than the sight of Garnett tearing up during an interview with Stuart Scott as he tried to explain why exactly he was so misunderstood, and at least be comforted with the knowledge that such a disgrace (the kind that occur on the Worldwide Leader with shocking frequency) would never occur.

You know why? Because he doesn't care what you think, what I think, what players and coaches from other teams think, and he sure doesn't care what Spike Lee — who has directed exactly one passable movie since Garnett entered the NBA in 1996 — thinks. 

So why do we care? Why am I hearing so many callers to 'EEI defending Garnett, when the guy doesn't care about defending himself? And let's be honest — if Garnett were on the Lakers and pulled the same exact act (you know all the greatest hits) he'd be destroyed in this town. And rightly so, by the way. Come on, lots of times we don't know what right and wrong is. But we've watched Garnett this year and it's pretty clear that he's a different guy. Again, always on the edge, always chippy in the past, but we didn't see this stuff this often in the last three years (I'm throwing out the Minnesota years because most people probably didn't see him play 30 games his entire career with the T-Wolves. And if he was still in Minnesota, doing this stuff on 42-40 teams, no one would care, either. You know how it works.)

And I think a lot of folks aren't comfortable with that, and deep down don't want to believe that their guy — KG, The Big Ticket, The Kid, Mr. Anything's Possible — could be the heavy. And that's when we hear the defense that drives me nuts. We've all heard it — Garnett doesn't know any better, he works himself into a craze, he's too intense. And that's not just the crowd that worships at the feet of Tommy Heinsohn — this is people covering the team (not all) and some radio talk show hosts. Enough. This is a grown man, 34 years old. If he can't control himself while playing a basketball game, we have a serious physiological problem here. And I'm not buying it. It's embarrassing to hear people try and convince themselves that this might be the cause of what makes Garnett do some of this stuff. Imagine if a Pistons fan called into 'EEI in 1987 and suggested that Laimbeer couldn't help himself? 

(Quick aside: All the things that Garnett has done this year — and even the Quentin Richardson elbow last year — would not have even been looked at twice 25 years ago. And I usually try to avoid the old "The NBA has gone soft" card. But Kevin McHale wasn't punished for the Kurt Rambis takedown and Robert Parish wasn't kicked out of the game when he clocked Laimbeer with a right hand. If Parish did that today, he'd be gone for the rest of the playoffs at a minimum. But that's the way it was then. And probably because stuff like that was allowed, this is the way it is now. And Kevin Garnett knows that, so it doesn't excuse anything he does. Just another chance for me to long for the NBA of the 1980s. Though I'm sure Tuesday night's 92-74 Milwaukee win over Toronto was played at roughly the same level as Celtics-Sixers from 1981.)

Ready for an obvious buffet? Kevin Garnett is a great basketball player, a lock first-ballot Hall of Famer. Any list of the top two dozen players in NBA history has to have his name on it. He's been — and remains — a terrific Celtic. A consummate teammate — though I did feel he acted selfishly with Richardson last year, let his desire to get into it with someone he didn't like take over. But 99.9999 percent of the time it's team first, no question. His No. 5 will be in the rafters one day. And the title hopes of this team still begin and end with one question: Is Garnett healthy? I'm not telling you anything you already don't know. 

And if you're a Celtics fan that's all that should matter. Who cares what Phil Jackson thinks? Until two weeks ago, did Alvin Gentry ever say a single word that had any impact in your life? So they'll boo him in Milwaukee and New York. Nobody boos lousy players on 18-44 teams for a reason. And at this point, just ignoring Spike Lee and his thirst to grasp on to any branch of relevancy is truly doing the right thing. 

Is Kevin Garnett a punk? No. He doesn't try to seriously injure anyone, he doesn't bitch if the Celtics win but he scored six points, he plays hurt, he cares only about winning, all that stuff.

Is Kevin Garnett a dirty player? I think that's getting closer to the truth.

One thing is for sure: He doesn't care either way. 

And neither should you.