Fire still burns inside for George Karl

LOS ANGELES — In the closing moments of their final playoff loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, the television cameras zoomed tightly on the face of Denver Nuggets coach George Karl.

He looked haggard and frustrated. The Nuggets' late-season sprint to last year's NBA playoffs had left them with nothing remaining for the playoffs.

They had to win 50 games to get the last spot in the West. And that was as much as they could do. The Nuggets ran into and were run over by the Lakers.

They looked dispirited. And their coach looked disconnected.

"In general, if I had to say one of the weaknesses of the years in Denver," said Karl, who is into his fifth season with the Nuggets, "is that we've had to waste too much energy in the regular season, to get things straight and on the right path to get into the playoffs.

"By the time we got into the playoffs, we were out of gas."

During last season's playoff series and through the offseason, Karl's commitment was questioned. There was serious speculation that, since his prostate cancer surgery on July 28, 2005, his coaching commitment has waned.

And there was more chatter that this season will be his final one in the NBA after coaching for 17 of the past 18 seasons in the league, including seven years in Seattle. He often has been shortlisted among the coaches on the hot seat. He is one of the favorites to be one of the first fired this year.

"I don't think this is it for me in coaching," Karl said. "I just don't see me not coaching. Now will it be in Denver, or the NBA? Maybe you know more than me."

And last week, in Staples Center, before the Nuggets got their first win of the season over the Clippers, just days before their star guard Allen Iverson was traded to Detroit for Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess in a move that emphasized the Nuggets' rededication to defense, Karl seemed renewed.

"I said last year that we needed to change our culture, our mentality a little bit," Karl said. "We're back to the old school, stressing defense 65-to-70 percent of the time. Every practice has 20 minutes of defense, minimum. I thought there would be more fighting, fighting me over that, but they've been great."

Still, Karl is the focus of commentaries in Denver that he has lost his team and lost his edge.

"I don't think I've lost the fire," he said. "I don't think anybody enjoys coaching, enjoys the gym, enjoys building a team, enjoys having a tradition of coaches who have become head coaches [Nate McMillan, Dwane Casey, Terry Stotts, Vinny Del Negro] more than I do.

"We're fighting for one more chance to win a championship. And the gym? The gym's still good. The junk around the gym is getting bigger and heavier and meaner. It seems like, for the last three, four, five years, you don't know who your enemies are. You don't know who's out there leaking and fibbing and gossiping. There's so much of it now."

And there is still controversy in the game. And, as he so often has been, Karl is in the middle of it. Trading Iverson was a bold, necessary move for the Nuggets, but the Nuggets needed more leadership. Billups can be that leader.

"We don't have any Nate McMillans or Sam Perkins in this locker room.," Karl said before the trade. "We have a kind of an out-of-control emotion in this locker room a lot. So I can't be out of control. But I think there's still a product of excellence with this team that, sometimes, people forget about because we get beat up in the playoffs."

Karl admits he has changed. His cancer and his son Coby's cancer have, slightly at least, altered the way he looks at the game.

"I don't take the game home as much," said Karl, who became a first-time grandfather this summer when daughter Kelci gave birth to a boy. "I do think there's a certain point where we over-coach, we overkill, we over-inform, we over-think.

"So when I'm home I try to give some time to me and people around me. And that's new. Before, my life was basketball, but now if I want to go to a movie, or go out to dinner, or get on the phone and talk to my family, I do that."

After the top-seeded Sonics lost to the eighth-seeded Nuggets in the first round of the 1994 season, Karl spent the summer in a deep depression. Now he says basketball never could take him that low again.

"The game's too good," he said. "The game has been too nice to me. It's been a blessing. It's crazy. I mean stupid crazy how good it's been. And the greatest thing for me was to be able to watch Coby play for the Lakers last year. Now the last gift I'd ever ask for from the game would be the chance to coach him."

The evolution of George Karl continues. After taking a summer to recharge, the coaching fire inside him still burns red hot. And he looks comfortable again in the eye of the hurricane.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com