Kevin Garnett Sure Is A Dirty Player, Part 2: Owner Edition

The AJC has a report from an event at which Atlanta Hawks co-owner Michael Gearon, Jr. -- a man no stranger to the Hawks-Celtics history -- spoke and lamented the lack of fouls being called on the Celtics, a team he calls 'old', and singled out everyone's favorite villain, Kevin Garnett.

"We don't get any calls, which I know everybody always hears," Gearon said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "But I'll give you a stat. Last night, we are playing this old physical team. They are old. I know what happens when you play basketball, old guys foul. [Kevin] Garnett is the dirtiest guy in the league. We are playing Boston last night and they had two fouls the whole first half. We had five times that and we're athletic."

Gearon kind of slips the shot at Garnett in without context. Kind of like making a diatribe against eating unhealthy and tossing in, "Wendy's has the worst drive-thru."

As far as merit to the argument, the Hawks do themselves no favors when locked into a stand and pass approach to the game, limiting how often the 'old' Celtics even have to move, much less foul. Can't really use the athleticism card when your team is standing still. For the series, the C's have attempted exactly two more free throws a game than the Hawks.

No question we'd like to see more fouls called against Boston, but I would want that to be in concert with a significant uptick in using that 'athleticism' to attack more and isolate less. They've done it in patches -- would love to see it for 48 minutes, especially late in games.

Gearon goes on to also take on the AJC and what he feels is the under-reported truths of how much Josh Smith and Al Horford have sacrificed for the team.

I wish ... some of the national media or even some of the local media, more the paper than the TV guys, recognize how hard these guys are playing based on how injured they are."

Ouch -- guess the RealMC can get right on that, eh?

I am more taken aback that Gearon never considers this forum or others like it when discussing media coverage of the team. Otherwise, he would feeling more of the love (at least on this issue). But hey, how can one expect a person that was responsible for the proliferation of wireless technology, via cell towers and the like, to adapt a similarly modern approach to media coverage? The newspaper is the landline of the sports coverage world these days.

Exit Question: What do you think about Gearon's comments?