Is Kevin Garnett a Great Competitor or Just a Smack-Talking Poser?

Few players evoke the polar extremes of public opinion like the Boston Celtics' Kevin Garnett.

His fans understand him to be one of the most intense competitors in the game, while his critics see little more than a loud mouth clinging to relevance.

It would be too easy to say the truth lies somewhere in between. In fact, Garnett's apologists and detractors alike are both 100 percent correct. It isn't that their contrasting assessments go too far—it's simply that KG is a paradox.

Garnett's latest confrontation—if you can call it that—with LeBron James has returned Boston's temperamental icon to the scrutinizing spotlight.

On the one hand, anyone denying that this guy runs his mouth more than he probably should just hasn't been paying attention. When he's not playing world class basketball, he's busy picking fights that are quite simply below him by almost any measure—or at least that's the way Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski explained it in the wake of the Charlie Villanueva controversy:

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For years, he’s gone after smaller, younger players. He never goes after tough guys. Never. For some reason, he reveled in going out of his way to abuse European players. So many young Euros grew up idolizing him, loved the range of his versatility at 7 feet, only to have images of him shattered with cheap shots and trash talk on the floor. A few days ago, this happened to the Knicks’ Timofey Mozgov. It happens all the time. Pau Gasol. Jose Calderon. The list is long and the act is tired.

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And yet, for all the shenanigans, there are few players you'd rather have on your team.

Garnett is a vocal leader who's unfailingly loyal to his teammates. His hard work and intelligence are often ignored on account of just how talented and athletic he's been throughout his 17 seasons.

After spending 12 of those seasons with the middling Minnesota Timberwolves, Garnett was more than happy to sacrifice minutes and statistics to prolong his career with a contender like the Boston Celtics. He never hesitated to do the kind of things a successful club needs to him to do—from setting hard picks to playing tireless defense.

Most recently, he moved from the power forward position over to center late in the season, allowing Brandon Bass to star at the four spot. There aren't many 36-year-old superstars interested in making those kind of transitions.

Both Garnett and his team benefited from the move, and there's a good case to be made that the Celtics wouldn't find themselves in the Conference Finals without it.

But, for all the future Hall-of-Famer has done for this franchise, you'd be hard-pressed to rank his aptitude for trash-talking as one of his more impressive contributions.

Sure, it's a competitive game. Words will inevitably be exchanged.

They just don't have to be exchanged quite so frequently. For a guy who seems as focused as they come, it's hard to understand the need for these kind of distractions.

If you can't be convinced that things like sportsmanship and professionalism remain virtues in this game, you'll never be persuaded that Garnett has ever so much as said a word too many.

If you remember the kind of lessons a team sport can teach—especially with the help of star role models leading by example—you'll wonder why such an elite talent has tarnished an otherwise historic reputation.