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Garnett grew up in a devout Jehovah's Witness household in Mauldin, S.C., a middle-class bedroom community outside of Greenville. From the start, his mother, Shirley Irby, knew her second child was special. "It took me 26 hours to deliver him," she told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "He was so long. Twenty-three inches."

Garnett, in fact, is Irby's maiden name. Though his father paid child support, Garnett had little contact with him growing up. He was emotionally removed from his stepfather as well. By all accounts, even before he started growing, basketball was his means of escape. "Me and my stepfather didn't get along," he told the Star Tribune, "I'd say, 'Why don't you put a goal [hoop] up?' He'd say, 'You don't need no goal.' My mom was easily influenced. After a while, I just had to be disobedient."

Garnett grew up, he says, "buck wild." By age 14 he had developed his long arms and legs, as well as a flair for getting along with people and a fondness for work. He earned money bagging groceries and cleaning restaurant bathrooms. He spent long days every summer playing ball in the park against bigger opponents; getting exponentially better and growing so fast his bones ached. His idols were Magic Johnson, Malik Sealey (a star player at St. John's University at the time) and, of course, Michael Jordan.

When Garnett entered Mauldin High School he was 6-foot-7. In an interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, his coach, James Fisher, recalled noting more than just his height, however. "I knew he was gifted the first time I saw him on the court." Good hands, good footwork, stuff no one can teach. "God-given." Fisher, who'd played freshman ball at North Carolina, sent out the word and worked the kid hard.

"I'd bust him at basketball practice, I mean really bust him. And then he'd go to the park and play basketball there. He'd leave one practice and go practice again. I never saw someone so obsessed."

By Garnett's sophomore season, far-flung scouts were showing up for games. Even in high school, where someone Garnett's size is likely to develop in the center position, he demonstrated eye-popping all-around skills.

When the school season ended, Garnett continued to play basketball in the state's Amateur Athletic Union and at Nike summer camps in Indiana, Oregon and Illinois. Fisher was confident Mauldin could win the state championship in Garnett's senior year.

But late into junior year, reality intervened. Garnett was involved at school in what has been variously described as a racial incident or hazing gone wrong. The exact details are a mystery to this day. (He refused to discuss it with even his closest friends.) A white student had a broken ankle and Garnett and four other black students were arrested in connection with it. They were handcuffed and hauled away in squad cars to Greenville for arraignment on charges of second-degree lynching (a standard assault citation in South Carolina). Bail was set at $10,000. The story made big news. Friends say Garnett was terrified.

Though the boys were released through a program for first-time offenders, Garnett faced expulsion from school. Irby had seen enough. Leaving her husband (they have since divorced), she moved Garnett and his younger sister to the West Side of Chicago. Her son was enrolled at Farragut Academy, a tough city high school with an overwhelmingly Hispanic student body. Farragut's predominantly black basketball team was coached by William Nelson, who had first met Garnett at a Nike camp two summers earlier.

High school sports are big news in Chicago, and Garnett's enrollment at Farragut provided additional grist for the mill. It was rumored that Garnett had been recruited out of camp, that Nelson had accepted money from Nike and that Farragut was a basketball "factory."

Nelson hotly denied the charges. As he told the Pioneer Press a year later, "I don't have a state title, a section title. There are other high schools in Chicago that are national powerhouses." As for accepting money: "Why am I still driving in this beat-up-ass car?"

Some also alleged that Nike had paid for the family's move and provided living expenses for a year. These rumors seem less credible now that it's known that Irby worked two jobs to make ends meet.

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