George Karl is one bitter little pill
(pic via @Joe_solomon)
“Karl has essentially validated the move Kroenke Sports chose to make by displaying his childishness in softball interviews with a small assortment of sympathetic journalists.”
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Some personalities in sports are universally loved and some are mostly hated. George Karl splits the difference.
The deposed Nuggets coach certainly has ardent supporters (many of whom hold positions within the Denver sports media), but he also has detractors. One of those detractors is the acting owner of the Denver Nuggets. Another, it turns out, is the team’s former General Manager. One week after Karl’s removal it appears as though both Josh Kroenke and Masai Ujiri were prepared to let the aging ball coach go.
Karl has spent the past couple of days doing his post-firing media tour and expressing his vitriol toward the Nuggets organization. Unfiltered as always, Karl hasn’t held anything back. In speaking to Benjamin Hochman, Vic Lombardi and Sandy Clough he has expressed that it was “stupid” for the Nuggets to fire him and that he pursued a contract extension only because it was in the best interest of his assistants, players, towel boys and everyone else involved with the Nuggets not named George Karl. To believe Karl is to believe that the Nuggets were on an upward trajectory when the truth of the matter is that they were going nowhere new under Karl’s tutelage. Josh Kroenke chose uncertainty over mediocrity and that boggles Karl’s mind.
You can’t blame George Karl for being angry. He was, after all, relieved of a job he loved and had performed pretty admirably for nearly a decade. You can, however, chide him for being a poor sport about it. As Mile High Sports’ James Merilatt pointed out on Twitter this morning, “The Kroenkes paid George Karl more than $30 million. Unless the checks bounced, exit with some class.” Instead, Karl has essentially validated the move Kroenke Sports chose to make by displaying his childishness in softball interviews with a small assortment of sympathetic journalists.
If he had any guts he would have gone on the air with Mark Kiszla.
Karl told Sandy Clough today that he wants to coach this season and that “Memphis is very interesting” to him. But what NBA front office wants to bring in a guy who will throw everyone under the bus if things don’t work out? Karl is a bitter little pill. One would think that would be a factor teams would have a hard time swallowing. He says he needs to “evaluate my health, evaluate my family” and that he “might retire”. That’s probably best at this stage. Karl is 62, not entirely healthy and not in a great spot for starting over.
As far as the Nuggets are concerned, Karl’s advice is “trust the players”. Of course, it was failing to trust certain players that led to Karl’s demise. The front office wanted to see their investments in Faried and McGee pay off and they weren’t happy to see them sitting in favor of “Karl guys” like Koufus and Andre Miller. In other words, Karl didn’t heed his own advice. Oddly, he called the Nuggets out for the same transgression, stating “the rules they say they live by they don’t live by with me”.
As the days pass it becomes more and more apparent that Karl being fired the best thing for everybody. There was a cloud of hidden resentment hovering over the Nuggets. A fresh start is best. Josh Kroenke made a difficult and somewhat shocking decision that may prove to set the organization back a step or two before it can move forward. But, if the George Karl we have read about in the paper and heard talking on sports radio over the past couple of days is the coach we were going to have next season then there’s no question he had to go.
