George Karl Cowardly Making A.I. The Scapegoat

George Karl "Frontin"

In professional sports for whatever reason the players are held to a different standards then their superiors. It's almost as if players have to be courtesy, respectful and take the high road while coaches can get their Singletary on whenever they feel like it.

Leads me to what George Karl did to Iverson after the Nuggets traded him to Detroit. Karl criticized Iverson after he left basically saying he has a shoot first mentality, wasted a lot of possessions and took too many bad shots. My problem with Karl is first off he's not a good coach and he obviously trying to save his ass with this bs. The Nuggets knew exactly what they we're getting when they traded for A.I. Earth to Karl - A.I. is not a point and I know Ol' Larry gave you the run down on what you we're getting. Or maybe Karl forgot that AI didn't single-handedly kill his best shot at the Finals to date in the 01 playoffs by "passing" the ball to Eric Snow in. They knew they we're getting a 2-guard in a point guards body, one of the best scorers to ever play the game, 3rd in NBA history in points per game. It's not about Iverson vs. Billups, because only one of them will be a 1st ballot Hall of Famer. Look Iverson came to Denver and played as advertised. His shot attempts actually went down, his percentage went up and he maintained his scoring. He became a more efficient player. Denver just got beat by better teams, losing to the Spurs and the Lakers in their last two post season appearances. Bottom line.

For Karl to make the statement he made about Iverson wasting possessions makes me laugh. If in fact he cared so much about precious possessions you'd think he actually change his flawed philosophy and slow down the ball. For a team that played no defense because of his style to run and gun and shoot early in the shot clock good, you'd think he'd play a slow down game to help his team play solid D and have better posessions. No, Karl is feeling the pressure because he's coming up short and he's now attempting to blame Iverson because the team never acquired a good point guard to truly take full advantage of what the AI-Melo tandem could have been.