When people talk about the best coaches in the NBA, George Karl is a guy who frequently comes up in discussion. He is viewed as a miracle worker of sorts; a guy who turns lemons into lemonade and helps struggling teams find success without having to blow everything up. When there's a team looking for a new head coach, George Karl is often thrown into the mix if he isn't already coaching some other forlorn cast of misfits. From 2005-2013, he coached the Denver Nuggets and currently is coaching the Sacramento Kings, who hired him because they believed he would give them the direction they needed.
While George Karl has been an NBA Coach of the Year (2013) and coached a team to the NBA Finals (1995-96 Seattle Super Sonics), he has by and large not done anything more than just hang around for a really long time. He has a regular season record of 1173-821 (58.8%) but has struggled in the playoffs with a record of 80-105 (43.2%).
While his trip to the NBA Finals with the Seattle Super Sonics in 1996 was a great achievement, his inability to guide the 63-19 Sonics past the 42-40 Denver Nuggets in the first round of the 1994 NBA playoffs was flat out embarrassing. It was the first time an 8 seed had upset a 1 seed in the NBA playoffs since the NBA adopted the 16-team format in 1984. How he didn't guide that Sonics team to the NBA Finals is something that I'll never understand and the fact that he only managed to come out of the Western Conference once with a Gary Payton/Shawn Kemp duo is rather pathetic.
When given one of the most talented duos in NBA history, George Karl underachieved big time and that is something that not enough people talk about. Maybe it's because George Karl is a nice person and nobody wants to talk ill of him. While I'm sure he's a swell guy off the court, his coaching hasn't been anything to write home about if you really look at it under the microscope. He has just one trip to the NBA Finals and literally nothing else to write home about.
He stunk it up with the Cavaliers and Warriors in the 1980s, underachieved with the Sonics in the 1990s, had one good season with the Bucks in 2000-01 in which they reached the Eastern Conference Finals, and did some solid work with the Denver Nuggets, helping them reach the Western Conference Finals before losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009.
As far as his time with the Sacramento Kings is concerned, that has been a disaster. He has been on a crusade to derail the career of DeMarcus Cousins and take down anybody who is against him. He hasn't made the Kings any better. As a matter of fact, he's made them worse and even more chaotic than they were before he got there. He has embarrassed himself during his time in Sacramento and has made many people believe that he is no longer fit to coach in the NBA.
But, what's perhaps most puzzling to me is the fact that it has taken this long for people to finally question George Karl. Granted, Sacramento has been a mess unlike anything that George Karl has experienced, but considering his overall resume, one would think that the Sacramento Kings would have looked elsewhere for a coach to turn their team around. One would also think that the Denver Nuggets wouldn't have held on to him for as long as they did.
If the Oakland Raiders are committed to failure, then George Karl is committed to mediocrity. He finds ways to be mediocre or average as opposed to being great. His teams don't succeed like everybody thinks they do. In truth, they do ok at best and at worst blow up like a fat stick of dynamite.
George Karl gets mentioned as one of the best coaches in NBA history, but if you really look at it, he shouldn't be mentioned as an all-time great. He's hung around for a long time and found a way to keep getting hired. That in and of itself is impressive, but that doesn't mean he's a great basketball coach. It just means he's great at getting hired and convincing teams he has what it takes to right the ship. He very well may be the best coach in NBA history at getting hired after getting fired, but beyond that, he's nothing more than mediocre.
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