George Karl Talking Sonics

The Denver Nuggets' website has been running a series of interviews with George Karl, each focusing on a different year of Karl's amazing coaching career.

Naturally, a large chunk of those clips are focused upon Karl's work in Seattle, and ... wait, did you think this was going to be about the Sonics/Nuggets series? Seriously, how much self-loathing do you think I have? Do you think I flail myself while looking at a poster of Dikembe Mutombo every night before bed? Still?

No, no, no. This particular video covers the Sonics' great run in the 1993 playoffs, as they knocked off Utah and Houston before falling to Phoenix (and their two "helpers") in the Western Conference Finals.

To me, the most amazing part is Karl's incredible ability to recollect facts from those games, nearly 20 years later. More than anything, it illustrates the gap between fan and participant; as fans we enjoy these games, then go about our lives afterwards, but to those involved closely, they are their lives. The fact Karl was able to recall that the Sonics scored only 30 points in the first half and followed it up with 70 in the second half of Game 5 against Utah is marvelous (you can see the box score here).

If nothing else, check out the video to see Sam Perkins hit multiple threes. It will forever remain a mystery to me how that shot never got blocked.

Sonic Library: This Game's the Best

No team in Sonics history received more attention than the mercurial Payton/Kemp team of the 1990s.

Despite the fact they never earned a championship, that team had no fewer than four books written about it which, combined with the fact that the teenagers that followed that crazy bunch religiously are now in their 20s and 30s (and, gulp, 40s), means the Reign Man and the Glove will forever be in our consciousness.

Three of the four books, Full Court Pressure, Black Planet, and Men of Steal, focused mainly on the players, but one of them, This Game’s the Best turns its spotlight on the third performer in Seattle’s three-ring circus: George Karl.

Karl, who penned the book with Don Yaeger, comes off as nothing more than a curmudgeon who hates everything about the NBA except for the basketball itself, and he’s not thrilled with that bit all that much either.

This Game’s the Best goes into great detail about Karl’s life, from boyhood in Pennsylvania to somewhat-stardom at North Carolina to his (brief) career as an ABA guard to his years bouncing back and forth between the CBA, NBA and Europe as a head coach, all of which make for fantastic reading. Karl was (is) famous for his unvarnished opinions, and there aren’t too many members of the coaching fraternity who would on one of their brothers, as Karl does with Pat Riley:

“This is a game of hard work, of teamwork, of discipline, of commitment. It is more a daily attitude. But to listen to Pat Riley, he represents himself as if he’s smarter than we, the other coaches, are. I resent that.”

Opinions like that make Karl’s book enjoyable, but to turn his “call it like I see it” mantra on its head, this book is not well written. Checking in at close to 250 pages in paperback form, it is a double-spaced miasma of whininess, with only blankness staring at you between the lines.

There is no subtleness to This Game, no surprise considering whose name is in 100 point type on the front cover. Karl’s naivete when it comes to the complicated world of NBA basketball is refreshing in bursts and infuriating in others. On superagent David Falk in specific, and NBA players in general:

“I’m not sure what he’s doing is good for the long-term health of the league though. I have always had a question about David and his work with the players’ union: Why do a bunch of multimillionaires need a union anyway?”

The very fact that without a union they wouldn’t be multimillionaires is lost on Karl, and his obliviousness to the poor relationship between owners and players is further underlined a few sentences later with this bon mot:

“I do not think the owners are in it to hurt the players.”

Sigh.

When he isn’t busy condemning greedy players on other teams, Karl takes care to insult his own players, from Kendall Gill to Michael Cage to Gary Payton. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a hatchet job, and Karl repeatedly praises players when they put the team first. Still, the reader, after hearing page after page of criticisms and complaints, can hardly be forgiven for thinking he has become a member of the Sonics or Bucks or Warriors or Cavaliers in the waning days of Karl’s runs with those respective teams. Yes, George, we get it, today’s players don’t want it the way you did when you were playing, just the same way old players on your San Antonio teams probably whined about the way you didn’t it want it, and the way players on the … well, you get the picture. Old fogies complaining about young bucks (or Bucks) not “wanting it” or “putting the team first” has been going on so long as sports have been around, and Karl is hardly the first or the last to use those clichés. However, the fact others have trodden down that path so many times before doesn’t make his complaints entertaining; it makes them boring.

Thanks to Karl’s humor and honesty, though, there are some wonderful passages interspersed within the doggerel, one of which speaks directly to the man’s way of thinking.

In the late 80s Karl had given up any hope of becoming an NBA head coach. After stints with Golden State and Cleveland ended in frustration, Karl, while still young, figured he would never be given another shot and so headed for Spain with Real Madrid. His first foray was successful, and when Real offered him a chance to coach the team again, Karl gladly accepted. No fool, the boy from Pennsylvania was ready for Europe this time:

“When we were headed to Madrid the second time, we believed we would be there for several years so we shipped over more than four thousand pounds of household goods and food. You always take food when you go to Spain. They do not have Cheerios or Oreos or cake mixes of Hamburger Helper or any of those kinds of things. So we took all that stuff with us.”

It’s a delightful, biographical paragraph. Analyze it with me: Here you have a man, headed to one of the culinary capitals of the world, where good wine costs less than Coca-Cola, where vendors sell delicious tapas for next to nothing, where he has an opportunity to soak up a wonderful culture and its wonderful cuisine, and what does he do?

He ships a container of Hamburger Helper across the Atlantic Ocean.

To anyone else, it would be an embarrassing episode of your life you’d never tell anyone about. But to George Karl, it’s just being honest. The man wanted to eat Cheerios for breakfast, have a sandwich with Oreos for lunch, and Hamburger Helper for dinner, and he wasn’t about to be denied that just because Spaniards have some weird fascination with eating freshly prepared food.

You could read all 258 pages of This Game’s the Best to try to figure out George Karl, or you could just remember that anecdote. Either way, you’d know the man.

This Might Make Your Head Hurt

Consider, if you will, the role the Denver Nuggets franchise has played in the life of one George Karl.

The Nuggets, have, thanks to an infamous series from 15 years ago, served as the millstone around Karl's neck, the very emblem of his playoff failures. It could be argued that the Sonics' continued first-round playoff debacles in the years following that Denver series may not have happened were it not for the three-game collapse Seattle suffered at the hands of the Nuggets, inasmuch as they planted the seeds of doubt into the minds of the entire roster, not to mention thousands of anxious fans.

And, if Seattle doesn't suffer those failures, basketball historians look back a bit more fondly on George Karl's tenure as a head coach, correct? In fact, if Karl's Sonics had won a couple more playoff series, he doesn't get fired by Wally Walker, doesn't take over the Bucks, get fired by the Bucks, and then get hired by the Nuggets.

All of which leads us to last night's stirring win by Denver - now coached, obviously, by George Karl - over Los Angeles. For if the Nuggets are to pull off a series victory over the heavily favored Lakers, it might be enough to propel Karl into the Hall of Fame, as the list of NBA coaches who have guided two separate franchises to the Finals is about as long as the list of David Souter's girlfriends.

And so, you might argue, if Denver is to pull off the upset, the Denver Nuggets would be - simultaneously - the franchise that held back and then propelled George Karl into the Hall of Fame.

George Karl: Hall of Famer?

While watching Tuesday’s agonizing Laker win against the Nuggets, I overheard an interesting comment from Jeff Van Gundy. I’m paraphrasing here, but the gist of it was:

“A guy like George Karl, you talk about those other guys [the trio was in the midst of discussing coaches], and George Karl is a Hall of Fame coach.”

Quite a bold pronouncement, no? I’m sure Van Gundy was speaking more off the cuff than he was providing a cogent, nuanced argument, but regardless, it’s one I had been thinking about for the past few days.

Specifically, where does George Karl – wearer of funny ties, most intriguing coach in Sonics history, resident grouch – rank among the NBA’s all-time coaching greats?

Karl is a Gene Mauchian character. With no ring on his finger, he lacks the cache of such renowned “winners” as Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson, or Chuck Daly. A wonderfully successful regular season coach who revitalized five different franchises (Cleveland, Golden State, Seattle, Milwaukee, and Denver), Karl has, sadly, proven incapable of capturing the brass ring.

And so it is that, rather than lounging on the patio with the Auerbachs and Rileys, Karl is relegated to the kitchen with such lesser-knowns as Cotton Fitzsimmons and Rick Adelman. But is that a just scenario, or is his greatness being overlooked?

To make the case for Karl as a Hall of Famer, one could easily turn to his regular season accomplishments. He’s 10th all-time in victories, and almost everyone ahead of him is in the HOF.

Only ten men have coached as many regular season games as Karl, and take a guess as to how many have a better winning percentage.

Would it surprise you to find out that the answer is two? Or that those two – Jerry Sloan and Pat Riley – are both in the Hall of Fame?

With plenty of years left in his career, Karl now has more wins than Hall of Famers John Kundla and Alex Hannum, combined.

Fine, you say, but Kundla and Hannum are poor comparisons from a different era. What about someone who had a career of a roughly similar length to Karl in the same era, how would your boy match up then?

Well, if he lost every game for the next two and a half seasons, Karl would still have a better career winning percentage than legendary Hall of Famer Jack Ramsay. How’s that for a matchup? Further, even if Karl’s Nuggets flame out against the Lakers this spring, he’ll still have a better playoff winning percentage than the former Blazer coach.

Yes, the critics say, but Karl never won a title, so how can he deserve to go into the Hall?

Well, Jerry Sloan never won a title as a coach, his winning percentage is only marginally better than Karl’s (.602 to .592), he’s got a losing record in the playoffs (94-98), and he only managed one more conference championship than George, despite the fact he’s coached an extra five seasons. And Sloan’s in the Hall, right?

Or Hubie Brown. Sure, he’s great on tv, but he wasn’t all that great as a coach (70 games below .500, no conference titles, .368 playoff winning percentage), and he’s in the Hall, right?

You hear all of that, and you start thinking, hey, maybe Van Gundy’s on to something, maybe George Karl does deserve to get into the Hall. Top 10 in wins, brought five different teams to the playoffs … I know he doesn’t act or look like a Hall of Famer, but, geez, when you look at those numbers, it’s hard to argue, right?

Well, that’s one side. Here’s the other.

Of all the coaches in NBA history who have won 933 games (Karl’s total at the end of this season), the only other two without a title are Don Nelson and Jerry Sloan.

And while his regular season winning percentage ranks 12th all-time, cheek and jowl with Daly, Sloan, Kundla, and Sharman, his playoff winning percentage is a pedestrian 33rd, alongside the likes of McMillan, MacLeod, and Silas.

To get a better picture of Karl’s “greatness,” I crunched the numbers for the 50 coaches with the most regular season games, taking into special consideration four factors: Playoff Winning Percentage, Regular Season Winning Percentage, Conference Titles, and Championships. I further multiplied their career wins times winning percentage to give a truer indication of their accomplishments, divided the results by five to bring the total into a more manageable figure, gave each coach five points for a conference title, and finally 15 points for a championship. Add it all up, and you’ve got a list of the best coaches in history. (See chart accompanying this article for the complete numbers).

As expected, Phil Jackson is the top dog, with Riley, Auerbach, Popovich and Wilkens rounding out the top five. (Yes, Auerbach is ill served by his lack of “conference titles,” inasmuch as there were no conferences during his era. However, even if we give him credit for eight “Division” titles, he still falls short of Jackson. Regardless, any chart with Riley, Auerbach and Jackson as the top three can’t be all wrong, can it?).

Not surprisingly, the majority of the top ten are Hall of Famers, with the exceptions of active coaches and KC Jones, making him the only member of the Celtics not to be in the Hall (a little anti-Boston humor there).

In reality, the most comparable coaches to Karl are Don Nelson and Rick Adelman, neither of whom are in the Hall of Fame, although I’d have to imagine that eventually Nelson will be enshrined, considering that next year he’ll pass Lenny Wilkens for the most wins in NBA coaching history (or, at least Golden State fans hope he will; Nellie needs 24 to pass Wilkens).

Adelman, like Karl, has a strong regular season pedigree (even topping George in winning percentage), has taken multiple teams to the post-season, but is 0-for-Career in winning a championship.

For both gentlemen, barring a title run in the future, they will need to rely upon the length of their careers to gain access to the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately for both of them, the NBA landscape is littered with proficient coaches who couldn’t capture that one glorious season which catapulted them into the league’s upper class.

And so, to answer Jeff Van Gundy’s statement from Tuesday: Is George Karl a Hall of Famer?

Maybe someday, but not today.

Win it for George

How long must a man stand outside the door before they let him in?

How long must he submit applications before he gets approved?

Surely, surely, George Karl asks these questions every year.

On the one hand, Karl is a remarkably successful head coach. He’s been on the plus side of .500 nearly every year of his coaching career. He’s taken five different teams to the NBA playoffs, and most of those squads were languishing in mediocrity before Karl brought his unique blend of enthusiasm and nastiness on board. Instead of Jordan or Shaq or LeBron, Karl had World B. Free and Joe Barry Carroll and Ricky Pierce, and yet he still got those clubs into the playoffs.

A starter at North Carolina and a draftee of the Knicks, the gritty Karl parlayed a modicum of talent into five years as a professional basketball player, not a bad accomplishment for a 6’2” kid from Pennyslvania. He followed that with one of the best stretches of coaching in CBA history, with the Montana Golden Nuggets and Albany Patroons, including a remarkable 50-6 record for Albany.

And yet (you knew this was coming), Karl has seen his share of frustrations. To wit:

21 NBA seasons, no championships
2002 FIBA World Championships, lost to Yugoslavia
2 Real Madrid seasons, no championships
5 CBA seasons, no championships
2 seasons, San Antonio Spurs, assistant coach, no championships
5 seasons, San Antonio Spurs, player, no championships
4 seasons, University of North Carolina, no NCAA championships

And it’s not as if he was with lousy teams all those years. The Sonics’ failures are already all-to-familiar to our readers, but don’t forget that the Bucks went from being a #1 seed to watching the playoffs on television under Karl’s watch, that the Nuggets lost in the first round after winning their division, that Real Madrid won seven titles in less than two decades, but none under George, that the Spurs parlayed two consecutive first-place finishes into two consecutive early exits, that the Tar Heels fell short in the ’72 Final Four …

The ultimate knife in the back had to be Karl’s experience in Madrid. He was unable to guide the team to a title during his two-year run, grew dissatisfied with the situation (shocking, I know), quit mid-season to return to the NBA, then watched Real Madrid captured the Saporta Cup in his absence, something they had been unable to do during his tenure.

Of course, it could just as easily be 1991, when Albany went 28-0 at home and 50-6 overall … and didn’t even make it to the CBA Finals. Instead, they lost in six games to Wichita Falls in the semifinals.

That’s how it is with George Karl, though: Studying his coaching career is akin to studying the history of modern Italian warfare. The talent and passion are there in abundance, but the results always fail to materialize.

Pair Karl’s experiences with those of Phil Jackson, his coaching nemesis for the next fortnight. The Zen Master saw success as a collegiate athlete, as a professional with the Knicks, as a head coach in the CBA (two titles), then finally in the NBA (nine more). By my count, Jackson, now a Hall of Famer, has won 13 championships in his career.

George Karl? One.

In 1970-71 the Tarheels won the NIT.

That’s it.

Nearly 40 years ago, George Karl got to win the last game of his season and he hasn’t done it since. 40 years, man! An entire generation has been born, gone to school, graduated, gotten married, had children, and slouched towards middle age since Karl called himself a champion.

So, with that in mind, tell me, just please tell me, you’re rooting for George this year. Forget Kobe, forget Carmelo, forget Phil, forget all of them.

Instead, remember the Sonics losing to the Nuggets in 1993, remember the debacle with Wally Walker, remember the Bucks falling to the Sixers in 2001, remember how the 1991 Albany Patroons managed to go 50-6 during the regular season and lost the title, remember the Spurs losing year after year in the ABA playoffs … remember all of that.

Then, fellow basketball fan, ask the basketball gods to smile just this one time onto George Karl’s lumpy, looking-more-like-WC-Fields-every-day physique.

He’s earned it.

George Karl and Phil Jackson, A History