CHICAGO - Kevin Garnett is officially a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame finalist.

He earned this second honor a day after the Boston Celtics announced his number would be retired.

"It's earned, you know? Whenever you get your jersey retired, that's earned,” Garnett said on his way out of the United Center. “So I'm just very appreciative of the Boston ownership and their recognizing that.”

The formality of announcing Garnett’s election to the Hall of Fame will come in March during the Final Four. His presumed enshrinement will be in August in Springfield, and he’s expected to be joined by San Antonio Spurs legend, Tim Duncan.

Kobe Bryant was also selected as a Finalist on Friday. You can find a full list of finalists here

The induction will be the first of the ceremonies to honor for Garnett, who told the Celtics he wants to keep the second, his number retirement ceremony, simple.

“I told them I don’t need the Paul Pierce ceremony,” he said. “I want to keep it real simple. But I am very appreciative of them asking.”

Garnett, for all his intensity, has described himself as someone who’s always looking for the side door out of a building. He proved that when he tried to slip out of the United Center without talking to the media.

Earlier in the day, during a recording of Showtime’s “All The Smoke” podcast, he talked about his fateful decision to come to Boston. At the time, he said, he was choosing between the Los Angeles Lakers, the Phoenix Suns, the Golden State Warriors, and the Boston Celtics.

Garnett says the Warriors and Suns situations just weren’t right for him. He said his first choice was the Lakers, saying “I wanted to link with (Kobe Bryant),” but he says Bryant didn’t answer his call.

“I shouted at Kobe he didn’t pick the line up,” he told podcast hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “T-Lue (Tyronn Lue) and Kobe were close and he said ‘shoot at him again and see what he on.’ So I shouted again and he didn’t get back, so I had to make a decision.”

In the meantime, the Celtics made their pitch.

“Danny Ainge flew in. He just got right to it, showed the vision,” Garnett said. “And the vision he was saying -- you ever have somebody talking to you, and as they’re talking to you, you can see what they’re saying so much that you’re not even looking at him no more? Painting a picture, and that’s how he was painting it. This is Danny Ainge’s greatness, him being able to lure you in with his charming ass. Next thing you know he was finessing me.”

He went on to say that, after seeing a clip of Rajon Rondo, he insisted that Boston keep Rondo, who was initially part of the deal. He knew that after challenging the guys left on the team, like Rondo, Tony Allen, and Kendrick Perkins, that he had a group of guys that he could win with.

Garnett was the ultimate culture changer. He details on the podcast, which will be released this weekend, how he walked into a conversation with Wyc Grousbeck and challenged him, intentionally making him uncomfortable as he laid out how he wanted things.

He came to Boston on his terms and won a championship. If his luck was a little different, then maybe he’d have a couple more, but that doesn’t matter.

His number five is going into the TD Garden rafters mere months after his induction into the Hall of Fame. It’s something he never could have imagined.

“I never really put that on the goals. I never put that on the paper. It was all about busting these guys ass right here, crossing their names out” he said during the podcast recording, mimicking a list of players he wanted to beat. “It was about being the best in this right here and putting your name at the top. That was it.”