The guy who created now says Karl is his second choice for NBA coach of the year.
So, sure, we’re a little fickle with the sporting objects of our affection and disdain, although blogger Andrew Feinstein says it is Karl who has changed, not him.
I have known Karl for almost 20 years and I can assure you that he is always changing, never more than by his son’s cancer, not to mention his own. Privately redeemed now, public redemption lies just around the corner, awaiting that first playoff series.
Look around. Mike Shanahan is out of work and Josh McDaniels . . . well, let’s not go there. Clint Hurdle has two choices: win or else. Tony Granato might take the fall for a roster that wouldn’t win under Scotty Bowman.
Meanwhile, Karl has the Nuggets near the top of the NBA’s tough Western Conference playoff bracket despite an intensive payroll-cutting campaign.
Feinstein, who later changed the name of his Nuggets blog to in a fit of moderation, reflects the general consensus. The favorite for coach of the year is Cleveland’s Mike Brown, who got his start as the Nuggets’ video coordinator under fellow University of San Diego alum Bernie Bickerstaff in 1992. The Cavs have been ridiculous all season.
After that, Karl is mentioned in a group thought to have coaxed more than expected from their casts, including Portland’s Nate McMillan, who was Karl’s favorite player in Seattle more than a decade ago, and Houston’s Rick Adelman.
Jerry Sloan, who has never won the award, is a sentimental favorite, although Utah’s late-season swoon isn’t helping.
Karl’s provisional rehabilitation is based on a return to the scrappy, trapping defense he used to great effect in Seattle. The Nuggets don’t have a ballhawk like Gary Payton, so it is not the same, but they do have unusually mobile big men and a power forward in Kenyon Martin who is willing and able to guard anybody.
“Probably not as disruptive,” Karl said of the comparison to his Sonics teams. “We don’t control the ball every night like we did in Seattle. We just wanted to be aggressive and the only way I know how to tune up aggressiveness is to do some of the double teams.”
Karl’s return to some of the schemes that brought him closest to an NBA championship — the Sonics made the Finals in 1996, losing in six games to Michael Jordan’s Bulls — was a step away from the Denver tradition he embraced when he arrived. Doug Moe’s passing game was a product of their common North Carolina background. Adding Moe to his staff, Karl tried to coach the wide-open game for which the Nuggets were known. But, as traditionalists predicted, it worked better in the regular season than in the playoffs.
By last spring, after the Nuggets’ fifth straight first-round playoff exit — and fourth since Karl’s arrival — Moe had returned to his role as a consultant. When the front office dumped the salaries of Marcus Camby and Eduardo Najera, the latter a Karl favorite, the veteran coach and longtime assistant Tim Grgurich took stock.
“What we had to do when all those things happened is to go convince everybody we could still kick butt,” Karl said. “And we did. I met with Nene. Grg met with Kenyon. We met with the young guys, we talked to the free agents. We had guys in the gym as early as Aug. 15 and always talking about, ‘Hey, we’re going to be the underdog, it’s going to be great. We’re going to go back to some old-school mentalities.’ Everybody seemed to buy in.
“And I give Kenyon a lot of credit. Not only did he buy in, he was the guy who said, ‘We have to. It’s the only way we can win.’ He kind of asserted himself from the very beginning of training camp.”
Ask other coaches and scouts and they will tell you the trade of Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups was the key move. This was another payroll reduction, but it also added a star who would support the coaching staff, a rare and precious gift in the NBA, as Tim Duncan in San Antonio and Kevin Garnett in Boston have proved.
For the moment, the wolves have left the door. The constant calls for Karl’s dismissal have slowed.
Of course, none of it will mean a thing if the Nuggets go out in the first round again. Karl’s public redemption still awaits its biggest test.
Dave Krieger: 303-954-5297 or dkrieger@denverpost.com
