George Karl continues to dish on Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Damian Lillard and Carmelo Anthony
George Karl says, in his new book, that Michael Jordan was A-OK with shipping Scottie Pippen away from the Chicago Bulls and into the arms of the waiting Seattle SuperSonics. Karl says that he spoke with Jordan personally about the projected move, sending Pippen to a Seattle team with the NBA’s best record in exchange for a lottery pick, swingman Ricky Pierce and scoring stud Shawn Kemp. That MJ encouraged Karl to deal for the teammate Jordan had won three titles already with, prior to the three titles he’d win again with Pippen when the trade (ultimately) did not go through.
[Sign up for Yahoo Fantasy Basketball | Mock Draft | The Vertical | Latest news]
[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Basketball contest now | Free NBA Yahoo Cup entry]
As with all things surrounding George Karl, and his new book, this is a little less salacious than appears upon first blush.
The excerpt, first relayed by Kurt Helin at Pro Basketball Talk, details the talk behind a proposed trade that was actively discussed by all manner of sports media even back in 1994, sending a disappointed Pippen (then best known for refusing to re-enter a Bulls playoff game after coach Phil Jackson drew a last-second, game-winning play up for rookie Toni Kukoc) to a disappointing 63-win Seattle team that had just been bounced out of the first round while a retired Michael Jordan was away playing minor league baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization:
“The Bulls saw an opportunity. Four days before the draft, Jerry Krause called. The Chicago GM, who’d visited me in Spain, had a proposal: Kemp, Pierce, and our number one for Scottie Pippen. Pippen was the best small forward, or 3, in the league.
[…]
“But with his running buddy MJ now a baseball player, maybe Pippen was a little disconnected.
“When I tried to imagine the Sonics without Shawn I knew I’d miss him, but I got pretty excited picturing Gary and Scottie teaming up on a trap; they’d smother opposing guards. But every trade prompts a debate. I was in favor of this one but I wasn’t sure.
“So I called Michael. We talked about minor-league baseball, North Carolina basketball, and golf. Then we talked about the big deal on the table. Should we do this?
“’Do it,’ he said. ‘Scottie can make your other players better. Kemp can’t.’
“So, the day before the draft, we said yes. News of the trade immediately leaked out and onto the KJR airwaves. More anger from the callers, a lot more; our fans loved Shawn. Again, [SuperSonics owner Barry] Ackerley listened. That afternoon, he called our draft headquarters in the Sonics locker room. It doesn’t feel right, he told Wally [Walker, GM]. Better wait. I had the unpleasant job of calling Krause, who was not happy. While we dragged our feet on draft day, Krause got desperate. He called to tell me the Bulls would drop the demand for our number one pick. He offered a big chunk of money in the next call. Then he called back to double it.
“Literally minutes before the draft started, Ackerley backed us out of the deal. When I delivered the bad news, Krause dropped f-bombs and called me names. We’d keep Kemp, they’d keep Pippen.”
As Karl points out, news of the trade discussion leaked to both local and national press. It wasn’t the typical arrangement of the day, and as a result Pippen (set to take a pay cut in 1994-95, making just $2.25 million in a deal that was far, far below star standard even for the era) sulked for most of the following season. An MVP candidate in 1993-94 after leading the Jordan-less Bulls to a record that nearly matched the work of the champion 1992-93 Chicago team, Pippen still played brilliantly the following season, but he reacted as most would after powerlessly hearing his professional future dragged through the rumor mill.
[Follow Ball Don’t Lie on social media: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Tumblr]
[Follow Dunks Don’t Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball]
Kemp stayed in Seattle and produced his best year yet, averaging nearly 19 and 10 in just 32.7 minutes a game while playing 82 games. Pierce was dealt to Golden State that summer for Sarunas Marciulonis, as the team looked for two-way small forward help. The team’s pick in the 1994 draft (acquired in a deal that sent “small forward” Kendall Gill to Charlotte), the one Chicago coveted in hopes of landing Eddie Jones (selected one spot earlier by the Lakers), also went to Golden State as lithe rookie big man Carlos Rogers was made part of the Marciulonis/Pierce deal.
None of this helped Seattle, as the SuperSonics were tossed in the first round of the postseason yet again – this time to Jones’ Los Angeles Lakers, even after Karl and Co. ran to 57 wins in 1994-95. Michael Jordan, famously, returned to the Bulls with a month left in the regular season to re-team with Pippen, prior to falling in the second round to Orlando.
Does this mean Michael Jordan wanted Scottie Pippen off the Chicago Bulls? Hardly.
While Michael probably had designs upon an NBA return throughout his 18-month sabbatical, he was truly and fully committed to his baseball career at the time of the 1994 NBA draft. Major League Baseball was still months away from a labor dispute that would halt the play of games (which would help encourage Michael to give up his baseball dream), and Jordan was still nine months removed from suiting up alongside Pippen.
Jordan was correct in deducing that Pippen would make everyone on the SuperSonics better and, had he been asked, probably would have deemed a Kemp (at age 25) and Eddie Jones-led rebirth of the Bulls something positive. Whether Jordan was part of the re-tooling, or not. At that point, the Chicago Bulls were not his team. The Chicago Bulls were a year removed from and nearly a year away from once again becoming Michael Jordan’s team.
Pippen’s 1994-95 season was his final, fully healthy season as a pro; even though he played until 2002-03.
Pushed into the maelstrom of the bullying Eastern Conference playoff race right out of a Division II college, Pippen’s two-way game made his prime a little more delicate than most. Though he was just 28 at the time of the trade talk, back and ankle injuries would catch up to him midway through 1995-96, and dog the rest of his career. Shawn Kemp looked like a franchise talent until 1998’s lockout break, when his off-court habits pre-naturally aged his game.
Was Michael Jordan washing his hands of Scottie Pippen? Hardly. Bulls GM Jerry Krause never listened to Jordan, for good or ill, and MJ at that point hadn’t played a basketball game with Scottie Pippen in over a year. He was just providing a scouting report to a fellow North Carolina alum that, in the two decades since, is as accurate now as it was in 1994.
This is par for George Karl’s course, though, as he looks to sell the book.
Reeling from some of the more uproarious excerpts, New York Magazine’s David Marchese spoke with Karl in an attempt to allow the former Seattle, Cleveland, Golden State, Real Madrid, Milwaukee, Denver and Sacramento coach to explain the more pointed parts.
The talk, for Karl’s side at least, was less than successful. Witness this back and forth, in reaction to Karl’s assertion that the NBA influences referees in valuing certain star-laden rosters over others, when it comes time to make a hyperquick, millisecond-long call:
Probably the most controversial idea you put forward in your book is that the league uses the refs to influence the outcome of games. But you really only insinuate. So let me ask you: Do you believe that the NBA sometimes attempts to determine which teams win and which teams lose?
That’s my interpretation. I’m a conspiracist about this. The NBA is a multi-billion-dollar business and has a financial interest in certain teams and players doing well. Do I know the league tries anything funny? No. But things are suspicious.
The examples you use are when your Seattle Supersonics had officiating calls go against them in the playoffs in ’93 against the Phoenix Suns and then again in the ’01 playoffs when your Milwaukee Bucks were playing the Philadelphia 76ers. In both cases you say that the league wanted the MVPs — Charles Barkley and Allen Iverson — in the finals. This isn’t just retrospective sour grapes on your part?
Look, when I got into the early ’80s, the NBA was a struggling business. You could buy a franchise for 10 or 12 million dollars. David Stern, with the help of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan, did an incredible job of turning the league into a big-money venture. I have trouble recognizing that the NBA is primarily a business and not a sport. That’s probably going to be my ultimate downfall with the league.
So I’m still not totally clear on your answer to my question. Does the league try to manipulate outcomes via the referees?
There are days I think it does. But deep down in my heart I have to believe it doesn’t.
Well, that’s … why? So we’re in the same place that we started? Minus, for those that bought his book, twenty-odd bucks?
Karl’s 1993 Seattle team, like that year’s version of the Los Angeles Lakers, gave Barkley’s Phoenix Suns a real run in the playoffs. Barkley’s team sleepwalked in its usual country club-style throughout both series, giving two inferior teams hopes they didn’t deserve. Remember, this was the same Suns team that wasn’t even ready for the two-time defending champion Chicago Bulls in that year’s Finals, as the Bulls outworked the potent Suns on the way toward taking a 2-0 lead in the championship round, with both wins coming on Phoenix’s home court.
The 2001 Milwaukee Bucks? Their main bone of contention came from losing suspended ad hoc center Scott Williams – a former Bull and North Carolina cohort – for Game 7 of the Eastern finals against the Philadelphia 76ers after Williams wasted Allen Iverson with an intentional elbow and arm-shiver to start Game 6:
So that’s what we’re left with. No proof, and Karl can’t even commit to the idea that the league asks its referees to push star-led outfits over Karl’s group of small town farm boys (led by All-Stars Kemp, Gary Payton, Detlef Schrempf, Glenn Robinson, Sam Cassell, and Ray Allen – who repeatedly got away with offensive fouls during the 2001 Eastern Conference finals) during his book’s promotional stage.
Elsewhere in the NY Mag feature, Karl manages to throw a bit of unsolicited shade at Portland star Damian Lillard (“My conclusion is that Damian Lillard is getting too much attention” off the court, and “I’m going to say the problem is Lillard”) as a way of throwing a small shot at longtime co-worker Terry Stotts.
George Karl coached Stotts in the CBA and later worked with the current Portland head coach on benches in Spain, Seattle and Milwaukee. If the two haven’t had a falling out, they are at the very least not as close as they used to be.
The entire interview (especially Marchese’s rather pointed asides) is a must-read, especially the parts in which Karl refers to Carmelo Anthony as a “user” in a bid to attempt to describe his interest in securing a healthy and fulfilling life outside of basketball, through his work in professional basketball. George would also make the ABA’s red, white and blue ball the NBA’s official ball (as his second move upon taking over as league commissioner), and he reveals that he “would still like to coach again.”
He better get his stories straight, first.
– – – – – – –
Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
