Mark seems like a very smart guy too.
That being said, the media focused on Garnett being insensitive about comparing the game to a war, when we have troops in a war right now. It's as if Garnett was the first and only person to compare a game to a war -- how many times does the media refer to an athlete as a "hero" or a "warrior," and how many times does the media try to play up war-like confrontations (to wit: Yankees/Red Sox, Piazza/Clemens, et al.) What's the difference? After Pedro Martinez beat up Don Zimmer, Red Sox manager Grady Little said "I think we've just upgraded from a battle to a war." I don't remember any media outrage about that.
IMHO, Garnett probably shouldn't have listed the arsenal of guns -- he sounded like a gangbanger -- but the war comment itself was just another sports cliche, one that the media itself engages in all the time.