Why the Nuggets actually were smart to fire George Karl

Recently,  former head coach  George Karl was let go by the Denver Nuggets after nine seasons at the helm. Many, including writers on this site, have begun to question the Nuggets for this decision. Karl was let go, despite leading the Nuggets to a 57-win season, the best record in the franchise’s history and winning 2013 Coach of the Year award. With all the success, the Nuggets were bounced again in the first round of the playoffs by the Golden State Warriors. The Nuggets GM was also let go as the team decided not to match the offer he accepted from the Raptors. So why did a team that just set a franchse-best for wins fire its coach and not retain its General Manager?

The Nuggets have managed to lose their GM and coach in a single off-season. By Keith Allison, via Wikimedia Commons

This was the year the Nuggets were thought to finally take the next step and compete for the Western Conference title against the likes of the Lakers, Spurs, and Thunder. They looked poised to do so, clinching the number-three seed in the tough Western Conference and ended up with a first round match up with the up an coming Golden State Warriors. Led by second-year coach Marc Jackson, the Warriors showed potential, but the Nuggets were definitely the favorites. After game one of the series, the Nuggets were clearly in big trouble, even though they won. The mere fact the Warriors could lose a game only by two points when Stephen Curry shot 7-20 told me something. The Warriors did end up winning the series in six games and eliminated the Nuggets. Was it just a bad matchup for the Nuggets or something more?

Based on the fact that Karl was fired, I wasn’t the only one who thought it was something more. Yes, the Nuggets were a good team all year, but they weren’t that good on the road. Their home/road split was 38-3 at home and 19-22 on the road. To be below .500 on the road is a pretty good indicator that their top-3 seed in the Western Conference might not have been completely legitimate. The Nuggets’ up-tempo style is a fun one to watch, but in the playoffs you can’t just run up and down the court like the old Phoenix Suns. To win in the playoffs, you have to be able to grind and you need to be able to win on the road, something the Nuggets couldn’t do.

Grinding and winning on the road are things that can be about the coach. George Karl, a coach with one of the highest win totals (7th all-time in regular-season wins and 10th all-time in regular season winning percentage) in NBA history and thought of as a great coach, was fired. I believe Karl should have been let go long before this year. People call me a hater for it, but look at the facts. Karl has coached 25 years in the NBA and has only coached his teams out of the first round 8 times, 17 of 25 years he has either failed to make the playoffs or not get out of the first round. He is the Peyton Manning of coaching, being he only does well during the regular season. Unlike Karl, though at least Manning has a ring.

Don’t get me wrong, Karl is a good coach but isn’t as good as people think he is, and I think the move to fire him now was the correct move made by the Nuggets. Over the years, he’s had players who could play including Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Allen Iverson, and more. But much like the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL with Andy Reid, Karl was a long-tenured coach who wasn’t performing the way he could after all these years. Like the Eagles, the Nuggets need a new voice in their locker room and they finally will get it in whoever they hire.