Sports Radio Interviews

George Karl on the Offseason Moves in the NBA: “A Lot of Those Moves Were Made Because They Were Pissed at Us”

The offseason is over and it’s time for the NBA season to get started.  A number of teams around the NBA got better.  The Cavs made improvements to their roster, the Magic made some changes, the Celtics made some additions, the Spurs got better and the Lakers, coming off their NBA Championship, also brought in Ron Artest to make their team better as well.  If you take a listen to some of the national experts, they may tell you that it’s a five-team race for an NBA Championship and it’s going to be those five that I just mentioned. 

Where is the love for the Nuggets?  After all, they did advance to the Western Conference Finals a year ago and are bringing back the entire nucleus of their team.  While they may not have the kind of depth of some of the other top-level teams, they are bringing back their entire starting five from the team that went to the Western Conference Finals a year ago.  I get the feeling that people are not giving the Nuggets the kind of credit that they deserve.  I also get the feeling that’s just the way the Nuggets and Head Coach George Karl like it. 

George Karl joined 104.3 the Fan in Denverand talked about training camp, this year compared to last year, Melo, and how many of the offseason moves in the NBA were because teams feared the Nuggets. (Editor’s note:  Karl looked just like his son does now.  Although it’s tough to picture George with hair and without looking like he just swallowed a keg.)

On the difficulties during training camp with the team coming off a Conference Finals appearance:

“I’m going to have to say it was more difficult mentally.  The physical results were great.  Our practices were incredible.  After every practice, I grade every player and I grade the practice and I’ve never had as many A and A minus practices in a training camp as we had.  We had trouble converting our practice habits into game habits.  I’m not sure why that happened other than I thought there was a mental fatigue to starting camp early, flying to China, kind of having a spotty exhibition season.  We played a lot of games early, then we had four or five days.  Then we went to China, then we had four or five days.  There was kind of a disruptive, up and down focus on the game.  In general I think my team is ready.  I think they’re anxious.  I think they’re bored with training camp and they’re ready to go.  I think Chauncey (Billups) has done a great job along with ‘Melo (Carmelo Anthony) of making sure that what we did last year was very meaningless at this moment.  We have to go out and be ready for teams to come after us like a final four team that we were.  I think they’re going to be more prepared, more intense, more aggressive and more wanting to get a big win and it will be a big win in many of our games in November.”

On last year compared to this year:

“My big belief is that we had kind of a special karma to our team last year.  We had Nene coming back from cancer, we had Chauncey coming back to Denver, we had Chris Andersen coming off of drug rehab, and we had Dahntay Jones being a D-League player.  You had such a good spirit to the season.  I honestly think this year what we need is one or two of our guys, it might be Kenyon (Martin), it might be J.R (Smith), it might be ‘Melo, it might Nene, we need two of our guys to have the best years of their career.  We need horses.  We need guys so into playing good basketball, that it’s easy, it feels good, it motivates everybody to play at a high level.  ‘Melo has shown me that he’s ready for that challenge.  Nene has a tremendous upside.  I think with Shaq (no longer) in the Western Conference, I think one other big guy moved from the west to the east, I think Nene has a great chance to be an all-star.   Chauncey is going to be Chauncey.  I think efficiently he’s not going to go down hill.  I think we might have to cut back his minutes, but probably the most impressive young guy in camp is the rookie we drafted out of North Carolina (Ty Lawson).”

On what Carmelo Anthony can do to show that he’s one of the best in the NBA:

“I think its triple doubles, its assist to turnover ratio, MVP votes and continued success in the playoffs.”

On what Carmelo Anthony needs to add to his game:

“I don’t know what ‘Melo’s assist to turnover ratio is.  I probably say it’s 1.2 to 1 or 1.3 to 1.  If he would become more of a guard or a pass-first player, I would play him more minutes, I would get him more shots and his efficiency would go off the charts.  I think the same thing goes with J.R.  J.R’s assist to turnover ratio is something that I would monitor and if it’s improved, again that’s a statistic that I will be monitoring on ‘Melo and on our team.  The only problem I thought that we had on offense mostly through training camp was our turnovers.  We averaged over 21 turnovers a game.  Way too many, way too many risky plays, way too many players playing outside of their strengths.  I think we’re going to have to rain that in a little bit.  If we can keep that as a high priority we will be fine.”

On the offseason moves of other teams in the NBA:

“I’m going to be a little proud and egotistical.  A lot of those moves were made because they were pissed at us.  They were kind of going ‘whoa that team has gotten better than us.’  They made those moves trying of course to catch up to us or get better than us.  That’s what happens in the summer time.  If I had to vote on one move, it seems like San Antonio has done a nice job of retooling their team and bringing in some veteran toughness and veteran experience, especially in (Antonio) McDyess and (Richard) Jefferson.  I think they’ve freed up their ability where their young kids will protect (Manu) Ginobili and (Tony) Parker a little bit more.  And (Tim) Duncan is Duncan.  I would say that San Antonio on paper would be the team that would bring a change.  You have to understand that sometimes in this league you can have too many players, you can have too much talent and when talent deteriorates team, it’s not valuable.  I think my thing is most of the time summertime talk is very cheap and very unpredictable.  I’ve always compared it to a coin toss.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.  It’s usually a 50/50 proposition.”

Listen to George Karl on 104.3 the Fan in Denver with Mike & Scott 

Link:

George Karl talks with Mike & Scott

Tags: Carmelo Anthony, Denver Nuggets, George Karl, NBA, Western Conference