If any publicity is good publicity, then George Karl is having an amazing week. Karl's memoir, "Furious George", is coming out in January, and both the title and its subtitle -- "My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection" -- let the reader know that Karl is not holding back. Now that advance copies have been distributed and his harsh personal criticism of former Denver Nuggets Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin has become public, he is receiving a bunch of backlash. And it's not just from former Nuggets.
Milwaukee Bucks guard Jason Terry addressed Karl's comments on his SiriusXM NBA radio show "The Runway" on Thursday, and he told a two-decade-old story about Karl. It was a whopper.
"When I was a sophomore at the University of Arizona, I used to work George Karl's basketball camp in Seattle," Terry said. "I was at a banquet, George walked up, he approached me, shook my hand and then whispered over to me and said, 'You'll never make it to the NBA. You're never serious. You're a joke.' That's what he told me. Word for word. And so I always kept that in the back of my mind, and every time I either faced a George Karl's team or when I'd see him, I always had a little extra motivation. Yeah, no question. But that's just George. I mean, if you know George, you know, for better or worse, that's just him. That's his personality. And he's always been like that and I can see why guys had a tough time playing with him or for him."
Terry is in his 18th season in the league. He won an NBA title in 2011 and the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2009. When he retires, he will smoothly transition into a career in either coaching or broadcasting -- he interviewed for the UAB coaching job last summer. It would be a massive understatement to say he proved Karl wrong.
