Are Kevin Garnett's Days as a Lockdown Defender for Boston Celtics Finished?

Once a Defensive Player of the Year, always a candidate for the honor?

Such a question could well pertain to Celtics forward Kevin Garnett, who will be entering his 17th NBA season if the current labor impasse is ever solved. KG has always been known as a monstrous defender, earning All-NBA first defensive team honors nine times and being honored with the league's most prestigious award for defense, the Defensive Player of the Year, for the championship-winning 2007-2008 season—his first with the Celtics.

But how much longer will be be able to play with the same defensive prowess? He's still great but it was clear last season, especially in the waning weeks, that he's a step slower. At age 35, and with 1,300 regular season and playoff games on his odometer, his days as an elite defender are at least numbered, if not possibly over.

Still, Garnett did make that ninth All-Defensive first team last season. And some of his advanced statistics (defensive win shares, defensive rating and steal percentage to name three) were near his career-high marks in those categories. And Basketball Prospectus ranked him ninth in the NBA in its defensive multiplier statistic, which basically measures how productive an opponent is when going up against a specific player. Some of the names above Garnett on this list? Howard, Wade, James, Bryant, Durant, Deng and Kirilenko, all elite NBA defenders. Basketball Prospectus uses that word, elite, to describe Garnett as well.

One does have to wonder, though, whether or not KG's advanced age, as well of some of the personnel changes undergone by the C's, will affect his defensive ability. As a team, the Celts defense suffered greatly with the trade of Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City last February.

Garnett and Perk were co-quarterbacks of the Celts' immense defense in that championship season and again in 2009-2010, when the team came within one win of an 18th franchise title. Perk's ostensible replacement, Jermaine O'Neal, is a serviceable defender in his own right. But can he hold up over an entire season? Or can Garnett, for that matter?

Of course, if the lockout doesn't end soon, there will be no NBA season. And such questions will be moot.