Furious George: My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection

by George Karl, Curt Sampson (With)

Overview

The firebrand former NBA coach and player recounts his career in this candid memoir.

During his three-decade career as a head coach in the NBA, George Karl has amassed more victories (1,175) than all but four men in league history, including Phil Jackson. While Jackson may have earned his iconic status by morphing into the Zen master, Karl has succeeded in the opposite manner—as an excitable firebrand who never backed down from a confrontation on or off the court.

In telling his story, Karl holds nothing back, talking candidly about the greed, selfishness, and ass covering he believes are characteristic of many modern professional players.

Off the court, Karl has summoned that inner steel to battle cancer alongside his son, Coby. Their shared struggle to overcome the toughest of all opponents shows a rarely-glimpsed side of Karl—a warmer, more compassionate streak that values family above all else.

Raw, hard-hitting, and brutally honest, Furious George is as in-your-face and entertaining as the game that has defined Karl’s life. Whether in backwater semi-pro towns or in NBA cities, George Karl coaches one way—all out.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062367815
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/21/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	252
Sales rank:	592,855
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

George Karl, an All-American at the University of North Carolina and an original member of the San Antonio Spurs, is the fifth-winningest coach in NBA history. Karl lives in Denver, where his favorite pastime is watching his daughter Kaci play soccer and basketball.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Chapter 1 Passion Play 1

Chapter 2 Fun, with Anger 11

Chapter 3 Fernando 33

Chapter 4 George Karl has lost it! 53

Chapter 5 Switch Everything 87

Chapter 6 How to Beat Michael Jordan 111

Chapter 7 Fired, Hired, Fired 135

Chapter 8 We're Number 6 159

Chapter 9 Nothing to do but me 167

Chapter 10 Now Entering the Game for the Lakers 185

Chapter 11 Please Remit $470.000 203

Chapter 12 Big Brother 221

Acknowledgments 229

Editorial Reviews

10/24/2016
In his first book, Karl, a successful, well-traveled NBA head coach (most recently of the Sacramento Kings), writing with Sampson (The Masters), promises to settle old scores and get in the last word. Given his history of talking openly, this is a delightful promise—but his work soon proves annoying and guarded. There are highlights, such as his descriptions of what it’s like to coach a game and how his intensity for work isolated himself from his family, including his son. He examines his relationships with mentors such as Dean Smith to players they coached. He says Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony was a “conundrum” and a “user of people,” and his star player in Sacramento, DeMarcus Cousins, “was the most disrespectful person I’ve ever been around,” but his criticism is more petty than revealing. Though Karl talks about how his 2010 diagnosis of throat and neck cancer changed his approach to work and diet, he mostly fails to address his own performance at his six NBA coaching stops—all of which ended on less than congenial terms. After a rocky, abbreviated stint in Sacramento, the 64-year-old Karl hints that he’d like to coach again. That may explain the frustrating honesty-with-limits approach employed here. Agent: Byrd Leavell, Waxman Leavell Literary. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

I loved playing against George’s teams because I knew he woul hdave them prepared to play their best. They were tough and smart, just like him.” — Michael Jordan

From the Publisher

I loved playing against George’s teams because I knew he woul hdave them prepared to play their best. They were tough and smart, just like him.

Michael Jordan

11/01/2016
Karl (b. 1951) provides a candid account of his career as a player and head coach in professional basketball. His philosophy of passionate, team-orientated play led him to over 1,100 wins as an NBA head coach with half a dozen teams, notably the Seattle Supersonics and the Denver Nuggets. This memoir recounts the difficulties of managing a team's competing egos as players vie for more playing time, exposure, and money. Karl also shares his criticisms of everything from NBA officiating to myopic owners that fire winning coaches to the work ethic and playing style of current players, especially his former players Carmelo Anthony and Demarcus Cousins. On a personal level, Karl provides insight into how the grind of an 82-game season contributed to the dissolution of his first marriage but created comradery between coaches over pregame rituals and late-night drinking. He describes the frustration of his coaching failures, in particular the sixth place finish of the U.S. team at the 2002 World Championships. Karl's bond with his son and his battle with cancer are softer moments that define this narrative. VERDICT This well-written memoir will interest basketball fans looking for a coaching counterpoint to Phil Jackson's Eleven Rings.—Chris Wilkes, Tazewell Cty. P.L., VA

Library Journal