George Karl is one of the most successful coaches in NBA history. But like many of the great ones, he has been known for butting heads with star players. Gary Payton says he was one of those players.
Payton and Kenyon Martin, who openly despised Karl, discussed playing for the coach recently on Martin’s “Neat & Unfiltered” podcast. Payton said he was initially ecstatic when the Seattle SuperSonics hired Karl because he did not enjoy playing under K.C. Jones, who was his first coach with the team. Those positive feelings quickly vanished, as Payton said he ended up wanting to unload on Karl every day.
Both Payton and Martin said assistant coach Tim Grgurich kept them grounded and knew how to relate to them. Karl, apparently, did not.
“(Grgurich) did the same thing with me, Kenyon, because I used to want to kill George’s a– every other f—ing day,” Payton said, as transcribed by Alex Kennedy of BasketballNews.com. “I wanted to beat his head in, you know what I’m saying? But it was Grgurich who (talked me down).
“You got to understand, Grgurich came from (coaching) guys like that at UNLV, so he knew how to get with us. He always went and recruited guys like ourselves, coming from neighborhoods (like we grew up in), where he knew we just needed to be let loose. Don’t put all that boundaries on us. Man, let us get loose, let us do what we got to do! And that’s why we all love him to death because he knew what we needed. I get it because some nights on them teams, you’re gonna to want to kill somebody, you’re gonna want to kill somebody.”
Though he never won a title, Karl is currently one of only nine coaches in NBA history to win more than 1,000 games. He’s as stubborn as they come, which we are reminded of every now and then when he takes a shot like this at one of his former star players.
Karl openly feuded with Martin, Carmelo Anthony, DeMarcus Cousins and others. There haven’t been quite as many headlines about him and Payton, which probably has more to do with when they worked together. The two clearly still had their issues.
