George Karl on what's wrong with basketball (and the Blazers)

He looks creepily like Larry Bird in the 70s

 

From the Kings @ Us game thread:

 

Fuck George Carl. He's a bitter old has been who's criticizing the best thing to happen to this franchise since forever. Dame's having a tough time right now and needs to adjust. But he doesn't deserve to be thrown under bus by some blow hard trying to hock a ghost-written book.

 

Karl might be in the wrong, but the guy knows hoops.

 

I really doubt Stotts asked him to do that. You could tell Terry was pissed.

 

I don't have a problem with him having a legitimate opinion. It's the manner in which he's communicating it. It reminds me of Joe Torre throwing all his players under the bus after the Yankees let him go. He had relationships with the team and he blew them up because he knew he was never going to coach again and was trying to sell a few books. Nobody cared because all the dirt was mostly about Clemens and Arod so people forgave him. But for somebody who was supposed to be a professional for so long and in a well paid job that a lot of people would like to have, Karl comes across as a dick. Just my own two cents. I just think it's cheap and cowardly. He burning bridges and he doesn't care what he says.

 

Karl probably is going on a bit of a "fuck it" tour. But I find it interesting why he chose Damian as a target? Maybe Stotts confided to him some frustrations privately and Karl was trying to "help out" -- Which didn't help at all.

 

Or doing a very good job of pretending to be pissed off.

It's also possible that Karl acted on his own, without Stotts' knowledge; to do Stotts a favour, with the intention of motivating Dame.

 

Possibly the latter, almost definitely not the former. A strained relationship with your star player, when you are 14-20 isn't a recipe for career stability.

 

There goes our chances of ever seeing Coby Karl in a Blazers uniform again.

 

But it would only be strained if Dame found out.

 

Damian isn't stupid. He probably knows that Karl and Stotts are close or at least friendly. Wouldn't your first instinct be to suspect that your coach had been privately bitching about you to an old associate and then that old friend, went out and blabbed?

 

No, sorry, we did land on the moon.

 

Stotts and Karl had a disagreement and did not talk for years. I doubt they have any kind of relationship where they are talking at all.

 

I would consider it, but isn't that scenario now in play even if Stotts did it or not? So all you're aiming for is plausible deniability.

 

I agree.

I don't know much about US of A sports outside of the NBA, but managers/coaches in other sports pull this kind of stuff all the time. Jose Mourinho has a legion of favourable media to leak his spin.

 

Sports rags in other countries like England put things out of context that even American papers wouldn't touch. "What? The Mexican team manager threatens to kill somebody? Print it front page!" Wasn't the Daily Mail paying somebody to put beer bottles on Paul Gascoigne's doorstep when his sister was trying desperately to save him from drinking himself to death? If something like that came out in the US people would shit a brick. In Europe, people get miffed but then shrug their shoulders. American coaches have to be their own press agents because it goes with their job. The press core will turn on them at the slightest provocation. Do or say the wrong thing and they'll end up on explaining themselves on The View.

 

So does Stan Van Gundy but I can't stand to hear him talk about it

 

Idaho Stampede died before they could retire his and Luke Jackson's jerseys