Ray Allen reveals why superstars didn't get along with George Karl: "He always found a way to bring team business into the media"
For all the brilliance George Karl brought to the sidelines — 1,175 career wins, playoff battles that stretched across four different decades and a pace-and-space ideology that came before its time — his name has often circled controversy.
His coaching philosophy wasn't really the problem, but because of how he communicated. Or rather, how many of his former stars claim he didn't.
The NBA is filled with stories of combustible relationships between players and coaches. Some ignite dynasties; others burn quietly for years before erupting.
In Karl's case, the pattern has been almost rhythmic: a run with a supremely talented team, an eventual playoff disappointment and then, later, headlines filled with unfiltered criticism.
"George has always taken shots at me through the media or writing books," former NBA star Ray Allen said, "and it's just the strangest thing, because I always thought we had a good relationship as a player-coach. But he always found a way to bring team business into the media. Talk about what is happening in practice, talk about me."
Allen's years with the Milwaukee Bucks from 1996–2003 helped shape him into one of the best two-guards the league had ever seen. By the 2000–01 season, he was averaging 22 points per game, leading the Bucks to a 52-win season and an Eastern Conference finals run that ended in seven hard-fought games against Allen Iverson's Philadelphia 76ers.
Coach Karl was on the sidelines then, the architect of a run-and-gun squad that included Glenn "Big Dog" Robinson and Sam Cassell, all orbiting around Allen's smooth shooting and veteran poise. The chemistry on the court didn't always mirror the atmosphere off it.
While the Bucks played with flair and cohesion, the behind-the-scenes relationship between player and coach appeared to fracture in ways subtle and strange.
Karl's style was never shy. He often wielded the media as an extension of his message, an indirect channel to motivate or critique. For veterans like Allen, who preferred professionalism and discretion, the public commentary chipped away at trust.
This wasn't isolated to Milwaukee. Karl's stint in the Seattle SuperSonics, coaching the high-flying team of the '90s, ended similarly. Despite leading the Sonics to a Finals appearance in 1996 and multiple 60-win seasons, the fallout with stars like Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton was headline fodder.
He would later detail those relationships, often critically, in his 2017 memoir "Furious George," a book that rekindled old tensions and offered little closure.For Allen, his recollection points to a deeper disconnect, one not just of disagreement, but of miscommunication entirely. To hear him tell it, the tension wasn't born of clashes in the locker room or shouting matches in practice. It was the silence. The absence of a conversation that should've happened, replaced instead by headlines and hearsay.
"I didn't think anything was wrong until I would talk to the media and they would say that he had a beef with me," Ray said. "And I didn't know any better then, I didn't know what he was pissed off about."
And that silence became loud. Allen was traded in 2003 in a deal that sent him to Seattle, a move that shocked many. He would go on to average 24 points per game in his first full season there, earning four more NBA All-Star nods, winning an Olympic gold medal and eventually collecting two NBA titles with the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat.
Karl, meanwhile, continued coaching the Denver Nuggets and later the Sacramento Kings. He led the Nuggets to a 57-win season in 2013, which earned him Coach of the Year honors, only to be dismissed that same offseason. By then, the story felt familiar: regular-season success, playoff disappointment and player-coach friction just beneath the surface.
Other former players, from DeMarcus Cousins to Carmelo Anthony, echoed versions of Allen's experience. Criticism, delivered not face-to-face but through press conferences or interviews, had become Karl's signature postscript.
For some, like Allen, the fallout never erupted into a public feud, but the distance remained.This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 22, 2025, where it first appeared.
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