The Celtics’ Kevin Garnett is the leading vote-getter in All-Star balloting.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

WALTHAM, Mass. — Paul Pierce and Kendrick Perkins may feel a bit nostalgic tonight when they see former teammates Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, Theo Ratliff and Gerald Green at the TD Banknorth Garden, but Kevin Garnett won’t be humming Auld Lang Syne for the club with which he spent the first 12 years of his career.

“A lot of the guys I played with in Minnesota are not even on this team. It’s like a brand-new team,” Garnett said yesterday of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who will make their annual appearance in Boston tonight. “The trainers, the people that are behind the scenes are probably more important than some of the people that are on the court.”

True enough. Only four players on the current roster — Mark Madsen, Craig Smith, Marko Jaric and Rashad McCants — were Garnett’s teammates in Minnesota.

But the 2008 Celtics are also like a brand-new team, thanks to the bold trades that Danny Ainge executed last summer to import Ray Allen from Seattle and Garnett from Minnesota. Ainge transformed Boston overnight from irrelevant loser to championship contender. The Celts will hit the halfway point of the season tonight with the best record in the NBA (33-7).

Garnett, the leading vote-getter in All-Star balloting, was respectful in his comments about his former team, but it was clear that he is all about the Celtics and the present, not the Timberwolves and the past.

“I’m happy where I’m at. I’m happy with my current situation. I’m so locked in to what we’re trying to do here that I haven’t even thought about the small things,” he said.

Celtics coach Doc Rivers, on the other hand, needed little prompting to talk about Garnett with the Timberwolves and the Celtics and to reminisce about the young players he coached and Ainge traded.

“Kevin had great years there, and part of the hang up with Kevin coming here to begin with is because he loved Minnesota. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Minnesota, and it was very difficult for him to give the perception that he was bailing. To me, that was the main reason he wanted to stay. Fortunately, he changed his mind, with a lot of calls and begging, and he’s here. But his heart will be there. He gave most of his main career there, so that will be different for him to come out and play against that jersey.”

The impact Garnett and fellow All-Star Ray Allen, whom Ainge acquired from Seattle, have had on their coaches and teammates has been significant.

“We got lucky in that we got two good people. We literally know and see Kevin’s and Ray’s talent, but the only reason this has worked is because they’re good people,” Rivers said.

They are also good players who have turned the Celtics from almost worst to first in less than a year.

“You got an impact player like Kevin Garnett, a former MVP, Olympic gold medalist, won just about everything you can win except an NBA championship as an individual, a guy like that can definitely turn an organization around,” Pierce said.

Garnett had garnered 1.75-million All-Star votes, more than any player in the league, yet he was unaware that the All-Star teams were being announced last night.

“I watch a lot of Family Guy. I don’t really watch a lot of regular TV. That keeps me upbeat and comical. Not a lot of Minnesota games. Not a lot of TNT. A lot of Family Guy,” Garnett said.

He is averaging 19.5 points, just below his career average of 20.5, and is second behind Pierce’s 20.4, yet he isn’t bothered because his goal is to win a championship, not a scoring title.

“I’m fortunate to be in a position to say that we’re winning. That feels good, and I’m happy to be a part of that. At the end of the day, these individual awards are what they are, individual. Without Ray, Paul, (Eddie) House, (Rajon) Rondo, all these guys on this team, I wouldn’t be what I am,” he said.

Pierce knew Garnett only as a rival until this season.

“A lot of things have surprised me about him,” Pierce said. “You look at him from afar, and you don’t have a chance to be with him on a day-to-day basis . . . to understand him as an individual, come in and practice every day, be around him on the plane every day, how detailed he is, how much he focuses in every day in practice. You see all the little things he does day in and day out. That’s what makes him who he is.”

And halfway through this turnaround season, who he is is the reason the Celtics are who they are.

As for his former players, Rivers said: “They were terrific kids, all of them, fun to coach. They improved each day. When you think about all we went through, we had to be one of the first teams on record to have the record we had and have very little turmoil. They were extremely close. They were good people,” he said.

Rivers wants his alumni to do well in the league.

“Just because you don’t coach them any more doesn’t mean you don’t coach them, you know what I mean?” said Rivers, who was most complimentary of Jefferson, the key to the July 29 deal for Minnesota.

“Kevin McHale wanted to get the best young player that he could get, if he was going to trade Garnett. He got him. There was not another young player he could have got that was offered better than Al Jefferson . . .

I think Al Jefferson’s numbers have proven that. . . . Al’s going to be an All-Star. I don’t know about this year. He has All-Star numbers; he doesn’t have an All-Star team.”

Jefferson has started every game for the Timberwolves and is averaging 20.8 points, 12.1 rebounds and 36.3 minutes. Minnesota is 7-34, the worst record in the NBA. Gomes, the former Providence College star, has played in every game, started 33 and is averaging 11.7 points and 5.3 rebounds.

mszostak@projo.com