LOS ANGELES — George Karl’s classic battles with Phil Jackson go back to when the current Nuggets players were in elementary school. And the two met in the 1996 NBA Finals and again in 2009 in the Western Conference finals.
And so, Saturday was weird. It was Nuggets-Lakers, but it wasn’t George versus Phil. Jackson has retired, and Mike Brown is the new coach.
“There’s no question there’s a different feel to it — Phil has a system, a karma, a personality,” Karl said of the 11-time champion.
Brown actually began his NBA career with the Nuggets. He was an unpaid intern and then was offered the job as video coordinator in 1992.
“I can remember was that they offered me $15,000,” Brown said, “and in my head I was thinking: ‘Sucker! I got you fooled. All you had to do was offer me a sweat suit and a couple pair of sneakers.’ I thought I was rich.”
His responsibility as a low-level worker extended beyond game film.
“When I was video coordinator, I landscaped our assistant GM’s yard,” he said. “I’ll never forget, I had a Nissan pickup truck. It was one thing to help landscape his yard — it was another thing to find out the 4-by-2 was going to be the stone hauler.”
Today, Brown makes around $4 million a year.
Love of the game. Karl admitted that as the lockout dragged on, he actually considered finding a temporary coaching job overseas, just because he missed the day-to-day aspects of the game he loves.
“I can’t go a whole year without coaching. I’ve got to go somewhere,” he said. “I had that conversation with Masai (Ujiri, the team executive).”
Karl said he didn’t know if he would have been able to coach overseas because of the connections those teams have with NBA players. But Karl was hoping to perhaps spend, say, a month with a team as a consultant — and bring his young coaching staff with him.
The global game. In the 1980s, Karl coached the player named World B. Free. And then on Saturday, Karl coached against Metta World Peace, whom one might remember as Ron Artest.
Asked which name he liked better, Karl said: “I kind of like Metta World Peace. I like the idea of World Peace.”
But, apparently, not a free world.
Benjamin Hochman, The Denver Post
