Here’s Why Carmelo Anthony, Ray Allen, And Other Former Players Feel George Karl Is A Snake
BY
DIME MAGAZINE • 06.23.15
#CARMELO ANTHONY #TWITTER
George Karl is reportedly fomenting a rebellion of sorts by shaping a cadre of players and front office personnel
in support of his plans to trade all-star,
DeMarcus Cousins.
Cousins responded to the report with a thinly-veiled emoji-only tweet seeming to equate Karl with a snake in the grass.*
After that, we stumbled across an
r/NBA thred who had nabbed a few more tweets from former players under Karl. Most used the same theme — a snake — to voice their displeasure with him in code:
There was ‘Melo in 2011, two days after he was dealt to the Knicks in a three-team blockbuster:
In the spring of last year, Andre Iguodala sent this tweet out:
It came after Karl voiced a pretty damning theory about his former player. Iggy, who played for Karl on the Nuggets during the 2012-13 season before being eliminated by the Warriors in a first-round playoff upset that spring, was dealt to Golden State — per his own wishes — in July of 2013.
Karl
said in an interview he thought Iggy was acting as a “mole” for the Warriors in their first-round win.
Q: Do you think Andre Iguodala was Mark Jackson’s “mole”?
A: No question.
Q: Does that bug you?
A: I just think that’s media hype. I mean, that series was not a physical series. Everybody wants to be more aggressive with the guy kicking your ass, so . . . .
Here’s what Karl’s former point guard tweeted on July 1, 2012, which just so happened to be the day the
Nuggets signed Andre Miller to a three-year deal as Lawson’s backup and late-game closer (something that probably didn’t sit too well with him).
Then there’s J.R., who sent this tweet in October of 2011. That’s more than a half year after Smith’s buddy was dealt to New York. At this point, J.R. was on the cusp of playing in China with the CBA negotiations dragging until December. But let’s go ahead and make it seem like Swish is calling out Karl, too.
As SB Nation’s Tom Ziller
pointed out on Twitter this morning, Karl ran into some of the same issues with Kendall Gill and Ray Allen almost two decades prior to this latest bit of tripe.
GETTY IMAGE
Here’s what happened to Gill
while playing for Karl in 1995:
He couldn’t believe it. He was young, wealthy and talented, grounded by a wonderful family and lucky enough to be in love with the first girl he ever kissed. All that and he was playing basketball for a Seattle team bound for 57 victories. But he was playing for Coach George Karl. Gill will tell you that Karl was the source of his sleepless nights during April 1995, that Karl was the reason he took a medical leave for five days that month.
”I was like, depression?” Gill said, sitting in the lobby of a team hotel on Friday during the Nets’ trip to Boston, quietly explaining the past. ”I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t feeling down and out. What I was, was furious. I felt that the next time I saw George, I was going to do something to him. That’s how I felt. That’s how furious I was.”
And
Allen blames Karl for the deadline deal sending him from Milwaukee to Seattle in 2003.
But the next year, despite an all-star year from Allen, the Bucks failed to reach the playoffs. Allen had another solid season in 2002-’03, but his relationship with Karl had deteriorated and the stunning trade was made at the February deadline, when the Bucks were in Seattle.
“It came too much to an abrupt end,” Allen said of his Bucks career. “It still seemed like there was more to be done here.
“Ultimately, I think it was the whole George Karl relationship. We started butting heads and it ended up not working.
“There was too much management of players. I didn’t feel like I had any problem with anybody. Sometimes you add one, or you subtract one, especially when the chemistry is a little bad, and that’s what happened.”
Allen said he tried to learn from any mistakes he made with Karl when he moved on and played for other coaches, including Nate McMillan in Seattle and Doc Rivers with Boston.
“George was probably one of the best coaches I’ve played for,” Allen said. “He was great with the Xs and Os. At the end of the day, it became a soap opera, I think.”
Allen said he has barely talked to Karl since the trade was made, even though he has faced Karl’s Denver teams numerous times.
Allen used even harsher language
when talking to Associated Press in 2003, claiming, “I started despising him.”
It seems Allen would sit down to talk things out with Karl, but “it always ended up being him talking and me listening.”
This is quite a bit of evidence supporting the report from earlier today that George Karl is trying to force a Cousins trade this summer.
Is he a snake in the grass? We’ll let you decide.
*We’re old, so it took us a while to make out what the hell it was trying to say. Thankfully, Bansky is a lot more hip than us.
