USA TODAY International Edition
Karl wants chance to clear air
Ex- coach regrets fatherhood comment
Former NBA coach George Karl found himself in hot water recently when comments he made in his book — Furious
George — were released, including his labeling of Carmelo Anthony as a “user of people” and his claim that Anthony and Kenyon Martin “carried two big burdens” because they had “all that money and no father to show them how to act like a man.”
The book will be released Tuesday, and before it came out, Karl joined USA TODAY Sports’ Sam Amick and Jeff Zillgitt on the NBA A to Z podcast to talk about why he wrote the book and to respond to some of the criticism.
When asked if he regretted how he said something in the book, Karl said, “I think the one thing is ( the) fatherhood ( comments). Fatherhood is very important to me, and I made that a target that it’s not. It seems like that was the one thing, and I said it poorly, I wrote it poorly. It’s read poorly in the book, and my whole thing is the one thing I regret probably most is some of the mothers ( being offended).
“Kenyon Martin’s mother is one of the great mothers, superstar mothers of the NBA, and I would never want to take anything away from some of the special families and also spe- cial mothers.”
Karl, who landed his first head coaching job in 1984 and spent most of the next three decades on the NBA sidelines before being fired by the Sacramento Kings at the end of the 2015- 16 season, says he wants to try to clear the air with those who were offended, including Anthony and Martin, who he coached with the Denver Nuggets.
“I think for me, whenever the storm settles a little bit, I think that’s a possibility that hopefully maybe Kenyon and whoever else, J. R. ( Smith), Melo, whoever other people who feel that we should have a one- on- one conversation, I would be totally and completely open to that,” he says.
As for coaching again, Karl, 65, was candid in his comments, saying he still has “a passion and love for the game.”
“I think every guy who has ever coached in the NBA, they say they don’t want to coach again, but they always probably would want to coach again.”