Along with Carmelo Anthony, George Karl helped breathe life into my favorite team in my favorite sport for the first time since 1994. Taking the reins from legends like Jeff Bzdelik, Mike Evans, Bill Hanzlik and Dan Issel (sorry Horse) made Karl look like a golden God in Denver.  Unlike most fans, my honeymoon didn’t last long.  Since roughly 2008, I’ve been telling anyone that would listen that he should be fired.  Everybody said I was nuts.  Last week the Nuggets let him go, and the reaction was pretty much the same: the Nuggets are nuts.  I’m here to tell you that they’re not.  I’ll split this into the two main beefs I have with Karl:

Beef 1: He’s a Fascist

My original beef with Karl, which I still stand firm on, is his complete inability to relate to or manage the egos of his players; arguably the most important function of an NBA coach.  The list of players “Furious George” has publicly crapped on is longer than the runway in Fast 6 (cinematic perfection by the way).

Let’s start in Seattle, where his major malfunction was with Gary Payton (they’re now BFFs, so nobody seems to remember this).  Their relationship was so dysfunctional that they would literally only communicate to each other through assistant coach Tim Grgurich.  Not exactly the ideal coach – point guard dynamic.  But at least The Glove didn’t wish him eternal damnation.  Check out this gem of a quote from teammate Kendall Gill:

“I wouldn’t mind running into him in a dark alley somewhere, and then we’d see how much smack he’s gonna talk. Normally, I wouldn’t say anything about George, but I’m tired of holding my tongue. I would have done anything to get away from George Karl. I would have played in Baghdad…. Judgment Day will come, and he’ll have to meet his maker. All of the characters he tried to destroy, he’ll have to pay for.”

If you ask a player about his coach, and he invokes war-zones and biblical Armageddon, that’s probably not a good thing.  But who really cares about Kendall Gill, right?  Certainly not the first time a coach didn’t get along with a player. So after a few years of regular season domination and post-season meltdowns (I mean, we should’ve seen it coming- pay close attention around the 1:32 mark for Robert Pack emasculating Shawn Kemp)…

… Karl heads to Milwaukee. Once again, he looks like a top-tier coach, works his regular season magic and turns the middling Bucks into a contender behind Sam Cassell, Glenn ‘Big Dog’ Robinson, and Jesus Shuttlesworth himself.  Impressive stuff.  Karl then started publicly feuding with Allen before trading him to Seattle and blowing up the whole team.  Star players just want no part of small markets I guess…

Shit. Well, benefit of the doubt then.  I mean, Allen has turned out to be one of the NBA’s most well known curmudgeons (probably still mad about the time Denzel accidentally killed his mom).  He blames Karl for the whole thing, but could very easily have been his fault.  Two sides to every story, takes two to tango, etc, etc… Publicly trashing star players to the press on just two teams does not a trend make.

Speaking of egos, USA Basketball everybody!  In 2002, Karl was selected to coach the US team at the FIBA World Championships in Indianapolis.  In the upset of the century, he publicly feuded with team star and leading scorer Paul Pierce.  Finishing sixth (SIXTH!!!), that team flopped harder than LeBron in the Eastern Conference Finals (sorry, had to).  Hard to believe Karl wasn’t successful coaching a bunch of stars with large egos.  From our friend Bill Simmons right after the debacle:

And choosing George Karl to play babysitter — someone who has struggled famously as an ego-massager and big-game coach — made a bad situation even worse. You think George Freakin’ Karl was going to convince these guys to play hard on defense and share the basketball? Did anyone watch the Milwaukee Bucks last season????

To be fair, not entirely his fault.  That team (Stephon Marbury, et al) essentially waved both middle fingers at the rest of the country, leading to the overhaul of the entire USA Basketball organization.  Plausible deniability, but this is really starting to look like a trend.

Which brings us to Denver.  Now, I’ve had this argument with fellow Nuggets fans a thousand times, so I’ll preface it: the players he feuded with in Denver are all well known assholes.  The missteps of Carmelo Anthony (exhibits A & B) and JR Swish (pipe anybody?) are all very well documented.  I fully understand this and fault them accordingly.  Thus the reason I lay out Karl’s prior relationship issues.  It’s still the coaches job to develop enough of a rapport with his players to get the most out of them on the court – especially with the franchise player.  Karl proved completely and unarguably inept at this in Denver.  Eventually, you just have to just call a spade a spade.  We officially have a trend: coach rules with iron fist, feuds with young talented player(s), trashes said player(s) to press, team falls apart.

Anyone that watched the Nuggets during the Karl era knows that he stubbornly plays favorites, plain and simple (see Carter, Anthony & Miller, Andre).  During the lockout, I played pickup with one of the prominent Nuggets from those teams (won’t name names, but he’s Brazilian) whom I asked about Karl.  Essentially, and I’m paraphrasing, if you’re on his bad side, pretty much all communication is cut off.  No extra time in the office, no constructive criticism, no – oh, what’s the word – coaching.  Radio silence.  Time and again he would trash players to the press instead of dealing with them directly.  The Denver press now gushes over his candor (the guys that started firegeorgekarl.com showered him with praise after he got canned, even getting defensive on Twitter when it was suggested they were happy with this move), but how do you think that affects a young millionaire with an ego the size of Alaska?  You mean they don’t respond well to being publicly insulted?  Baffling.  Karl has forgotten more basketball than I’ll ever know, and probably could’ve been the best college coach of all-time, but you can’t be a fascist in the NBA.  Not today.  So, that’s beef one, in just under 1,000 words. (Should be noted that if we make a few more deep playoff runs – I’m not even talking about a title necessarily – I happily deal with this and most likely blame the players.  Winning really does solve everything.)

Beef 2: He’s a Fascist That Can’t Win in the Playoffs

Beef two has been explored ad nauseam over the past week, so I won’t belabor the point, but it boils down to two sets of statistics: 8 out of 9 and 21-39.  In 8 of the last 9 seasons, we’ve been bounced in the first round of the playoffs.  Over that time, Karl’s postseason record is a sterling 21-39 (at .35, even lower than his lifetime postseason mark of .43).  Anyone thinking he didn’t deserve to get canned is ONLY thinking of the Nuggets in a historical sense. We were ‘lucky to be there’ in the playoffs every year, because we used to be terrible. That’s the kind of ambition that gets you a participation ribbon up on the Wall of Gaylord. If this were the Broncos, he’d of been gone years ago.  Some years were his fault, some weren’t (if we complete an in-bounds pass against the Lakers in 2009, we go to the Finals, but I digress). He feuded with Melo, wanted him gone, wanted a team with no egos- he got it. Same result. The only constant over those nine years was George Karl.  Would things have been different with a healthy Gallo? Maybe.  Hell, probably.  But let’s be honest here, Mark Jackson worked him like a speedbag in that series (breaking: Andre Miller IS NOT a crunch-time scorer and should not be allowed within 50 feet of Steph Curry).  Karl’s famous stubbornness has resulted in an almost comical inability to make adjustments during playoff series.  I’d think it was funnier if it didn’t leave me in an alcoholic depression every April.

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So what now? I don’t know; hopefully Brian Shaw or Lionel Hollins.  Shaw has a masters degree from Phil Jackson U, though whether or not this particular roster could flourish in the triangle remains to be seen (aside from Javale, I’m cautiously optimistic).  Hollins would rebuild our nonexistent defense and implement some half court sets – a necessity in the playoffs that Karl constantly neglected.  Really, it’s either of them or bust.  Rumor has it a ‘trade’ with Memphis is possible, where we get Hollins and they get Karl.  Could be weird, considering Karl thinks Javale McGee and Kenneth Faried are better than Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph.  Early lines out of Vegas put the over/under on how long it takes before Karl’s first spat with Z-Bo at just under 10 minutes.  Please, please, please let this happen.  We’ll throw in Andre Miller for a pulled pork sandwich and some baked beans.

Of course, if we sign the wrong guy and completely fall apart – hold out Gallo and tank for Wiggins.