http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/55518/20081118/coach_karl_knocks_iverson/ And yet he didn't do one thing about it....good call.
George Karl is an idiotic coach. He had so much talent at his disposal and so many options, yet it was HIS choice to let his team run ramped and try to outscore the other team every game. Why is it Iverson's fault that he couldn't think of a functional game plan?
I told you so: Karl refused to direct Iverson in any way. He is either unwilling to, unable to, or both to direct any of his historic players in any significant way. A perverse advantage of what actually may be a clever scheme by Karl is that when things don't work out optimally he can blame things on the player (who is making all of the decisions) rather than on himself. There is some evidence that he has been using this career climbing scheme for many, many years. In my opinion this is not only negligence but it is disgraceful also. Moreover, it is very disturbing how many Nuggets fans who have circled the wagons and rallied around the scaled back and shrunken Nuggets following Billups for Iverson are pretending that coaches are not allowed to or are unable to have any impact on how their players and teams play. They are pretending in effect that "quality players can always coach themselves." And they are also pretending that Iverson would not have changed anything had he been asked or ordered. It's uncool to openly support Karl of course, but a lot of the Nuggets fans are indirectly supporting Karl by giving him a pass on his huge Iverson blunder. Those fans need to live in the real world of competitive franchises, where players are not 100% free to do whatever they want. That includes Kobe Bryant: he gets instructions from Phil Jackson quite often. Nuggets fans are kind of sad when they live in Karl's world, where historic, great players can not be instructed or directed at all and are allowed virtually 100% freedom to do whatever they want. And meanwhile, younger, inconsistent players such as J.R. Smith are overlorded, over managed, and generally harassed by Karl. So yes, what I said recently is true: Iverson was punked by Karl and the Nuggets. All players deserve a boost from quality coaching and he didn't get one. Then he got the kick in the rear from Karl on his way out.
Damn, that is pretty harsh. Pretty classy of him to say this once Iverson is all the way in the East.
If the Pistons were giving Iverson 100% freedom than they would have maintained his shooting guard position. So we already know that changes are afoot. But we do not know yet what they have directed and we don't know yet to what extent they will avoid falling into what I call the "Iverson two point guard trap." The Pistons and Iverson have stated that the plan is for "Iverson to be Iverson." Do not be fooled. That is a big media throw away line that sounds nice but that really does not mean much. In sports as in politics, what the public line is is often nothing more than a "false flag." Do you think that the Pistons brass are going to tell the public exactly how they are using Iverson and exactly what he has been told? Do you think they would reveal their exact strategy to the public and thus to the other 29 teams? For that matter, do you think Iverson would give you that? No, they are not going to reveal those details. The only way to find out what the Pistons have told Iverson to do is to carefully track statistics, including ones never seen before, to see to what extent Iverson's game changes from the Sixers and the Nuggets. Which is of course exactly what I will be doing.
The headline for this in the Denver Post is: Point guard praise: Billups over A.I. This is ultra cheap, and this is a disgraceful lie posing as real information. The Nuggets organization and the Denver media are trying to (and succeeding to mostly, because most fans do not follow the Nuggets closely enough to see through this) create the belief that Iverson was not a good point guard and that is why he had to be traded and that is why everyone is so happy now that Billups is on the team. This is nothing more than garbage. Iverson was treated as a pure shooting guard from start to finish by Karl and the Nuggets. So now we have the Denver Post joining all the common Joes who foolishly criticize Iverson for being a poor point guard while he is not playing that position. Jeesh, this is why the open community internet is so important. You go to independent forums and web logs to get the real truth about things, because you are only going to get a lot of manure shoveled into your brain if you try to get informed from big Corporation sites such as the Denver Post.
Extremely harsh words by Karl. Cheap shots? Probably, but who really cares. As for the Nuggets having "so much potential"...I think they showed their potential. They were never going to be better than an 8th seed in the West with Iverson. I personally think they played to this teams strength by ramping up the the speed and pace. Iverson, Melo and Smith are all explosive open court players, so it would make no sense to strap them down in a halfcourt offense.
