Kenyon Martin jokes about burning copies of George Karl's book
The former Nuggets forward doesn't want the coach to get residuals, though
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2 min read
As if he didn't make himself clear enough in his tweetstorm on Thursday, former Denver Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin told The Undefeated's Marc Spears that George Karl was a bad coach because he didn't communicate with his players, didn't make any effort to get to know them and didn't prepare them properly. Oh, and Martin joked that he'd burn copies of Karl's forthcoming memoir, Furious George, if not for the fact that Karl would make money off the sales.
In the book, Karl calls Martin, Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith "AAU babies," and does some amateur psychology on all of them. He refers to Martin as "one of the most insecure, immature players I've ever coached," adding that he and Anthony "carried two big burdens: all that money, and no father to show them how to act like a man." Martin did not appreciate Karl inferring anything about his character from his childhood.
From The Undefeated:
"Who are you to talk about how I was raised? You know nothing about me. Nothing. I was irate. It took a while for me to calm down.
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"Does George know basketball? Yeah. Is he a good coach? No," Martin said. "In order to be a good coach you have to cover all aspects of the game. You need to communicate with your players the right way and get the best out of them."
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"I had nothing in common with George Karl other than we were getting paid by the same employer," Martin, who played with the Nuggets from 2004-11, said. "George used to walk through the locker room and not speak to nobody. Who does that? Egotistical, man."
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"I might go buy them and burn them like they burn people's jerseys. But then maybe he will get some residuals off of that. No, I won't do that. Not at all."
Players should not be exempt from criticism, and Karl should not have to sanitize his story to protect everybody he worked with over the years. He should, however, be held accountable for the way in which he chose to talk about his former players.
There is absolutely nothing surprising about Martin being upset that Karl chalked up his inability to connect with him to their different upbringings. Indirectly, it's a shot at Martin's mother and his sister, who raised him together. Of course he was angry, and of course he wanted to respond.
