George Karl Finds Different Comfort Zone In Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE - Veteran George Karl watchers raised their eyebrows at a recent box score.

Center Ervin Johnson had been replaced by Robert Traylor in the Milwaukee Bucks' starting lineup. That was the same Ervin Johnson who was benched in Seattle by Karl three games into the 1996 NBA Finals.

Less than a month into his first season coaching the Bucks, this had the feel of another storm front arriving in another city.

Deja George?

"Not at all," Johnson said after a recent Bucks win. "We had a talk. He brought it to my attention that he wanted to change the rotations, but he told me it was my call.

"I've always wanted to see what it's like to come off the bench. It's OK for me."

Karl flipped his starting lineup. He put a fierce defender, power forward Tyrone Hill, with rookie center Traylor. And he put a shot-blocking center, Johnson, with a defensively challenged power forward, Armen Gilliam.

It is the kind of tinkering a new coach has to try with his team.

There was no controversy. No pouting. No sweat. End of story.

This wasn't Kendall Gill in 1995. It wasn't Sarunas Marciulionis in the '95 playoffs. It wasn't Ervin Johnson in the NBA Finals.

It wasn't a storm warning.

It was a sound basketball decision, accepted by a five-year veteran. It was a coach communicating with his player.

"I don't think it's fair to say I don't talk with my players," Karl said. "I talked with Ervin when I benched him in Seattle. I talked with Kendall as much as . . . we could talk. Gary Payton always tells me I like to talk too much. He says I have too many meetings.

"There's no way a coach can coach a long time in this league and get along with every player, but I think my percentage is a higher ratio than most of the coaches.

"I think through my coaching experience, the majority of my players have respected what we have tried to do. And then there's a percentage, like Kendall and Benoit (Benjamin), who didn't. I think the majority of my players enjoyed the Seattle experience because they got better."

Life is good for George Karl, who signed a $20 million contract to coach the Bucks after he left Seattle.

This is a brats-and-a-beer guy in the ultimate brats-and-a-beer city. This is Oscar Madison up to his elbows in French fries.

This is life without the pretense. Life without Sonic President Wally Walker. Life without controversy.

After eight seasons of losing, these young Bucks are winning (9-5) and positioning themselves for their first playoff appearance since 1989.

In his office, leaning back in his chair, Karl, who coached seven seasons in Seattle, breaks out in a big grin, raises his arms in the air and announces, "I'm free! I'm free!"

Karl and Walker were Clinton and Starr, oil and water, Leno and Letterman.

The coach and the president feuded publicly and practically daily in Seattle. It was a soap opera and, in the end, the feud cost Karl his job.

The Sonics won 61 games last season. Karl was fired. The conflict that began the day Walker became general manager after the 1994 season, finally burned itself out.

"I think that when a relationship breaks down, the blame is equal," Karl said. "When they made the decision to hire Wally, I was disappointed, not in Wally, but in the choice of Wally. We were in a championship mode, and we go and hire an inexperienced guy.

"Subconsciously that got me into a mode where I wasn't going to get along with him. Then, we had another disappointing season. We had the hell of playing in Tacoma. Everybody thinks it's over for me. He saves my job. He keeps me. We have three, I think, special years after that. And then I get fired."

Karl said he thought seriously about leaving in the summer before his firing. If Walker hadn't made the Vin Baker-for-Shawn Kemp trade, Karl would have left.

"That whole summer Wally and I had gotten to the point where it was becoming a problem for my staff," Karl said. "It was becoming a problem in the organization. It wasn't fun to come to work every day.

"If you add to that the idea that instead of winning 60 games a year we would be a mediocre team - which is what I think we would have been if we hadn't made the Vin Baker trade, because Shawn wasn't going to report - I didn't want to be a part of that.

"It got bad enough that I had a meeting with my staff to tell them I wasn't coming back. But then we (made) the trade, Vin came and we became a pretty good team.

"If that hadn't happened, I would have been looking at coaching my butt off to win 45 games. It would have become a daily Wally Walker-George Karl thing. It would have been a huge drain.

"You know what's embarrassing, he (Walker) thinks he kept the Baker trade from us. He doesn't even know that (Cleveland Coach) Mike Fratello and I were talking about the trade every day. He wanted to know if he could coach Shawn. And our staff was talking to Milwaukee's coaches.

"I mean, we would come into work and he'd tell us there was nothing going on, and we'd have to laugh and say OK."

In Karl's view of the NBA, there are basketball people and there are political people.

Karl is all sweatsuits and blackboards. His playbook is the good book. He believes Walker and Sonic Vice President Billy McKinney belong to the league's political wing. He sees them wearing suits by Armani, not Nike.

"I still think the basketball guys are twice as talented as the politic guys," Karl said. "I believe the basketball people have to make the basketball decisions, and I don't think Wally's a basketball guy. I don't think Billy McKinney's a basketball guy.

"They're pseudo-gym guys. They don't feel comfortable in the gym. They don't like going to the gym. I feel comfortable with guys who want to be in the gym, like to be in the gym. And when they're in the gym, they know this is their home.

"My animosity comes from the fact I want the truth to come out. And the truth is, when you talk about the construction of the tradition that we had in Seattle, Wally Walker's name should be sixth or seventh on the rung of importance. Wally's not an innovator. He's just there."

Alas, a new rivalry has been born - the Sonics vs. the Bucks.

Karl coaches for the first time against his former players Wednesday night in Milwaukee.

March madness?

The conditions won't be perfect. The Bucks will be playing the third of three games in a row. The Sonics will be in the second night of a three-in-a-row roll.

"We've got to win that game for him," said Ray Allen, the Bucks' All-Star guard.

For Karl, it will be a bittersweet night. He will be reunited with players for whom he has great affection. But, he will want to beat the franchise that took this talented team from him.

"I want it to be fun," Karl said. "I don't want my players thinking it's a must-win or can't-lose game. I hope it's not a pressure game.

"We have to look at this as another game where we can work on our goals. Developing a home-court attitude. Becoming a playoff team. This will be the first time we've played three games in three nights. We have to understand what that is.

"Right now, I'm fired up to play the Sonics happily. It's not anger. It's going to be good to see the guys.

"I hope it's a fourth-quarter game. I know who I'm going to put on Gary (Payton) in the fourth quarter. We have some tricks we can use. We have a little versatility. We have some things we can do to, as Wally likes to call it, `gimmick' the game."

Karl is remolding Bucks

Drive into Milwaukee and you see billboards heralding Karl's arrival. His picture is on the program, the media guide, the magnet schedules.

The Bucks are selling hope through George Karl.

"I think George is a great eye-opener for this town," said Allen, who recently signed a six-year, $70.9 million contract extension. "People here are used to guys who are straight across the board, just conservative individuals. George has been good, because he is different. That's what Milwaukee needs.

"I could have signed a contract, or I could have become a free agent after this year. George is why I signed. I do feel like there is that special something coming into this organization."

Even the perceptions are changing. Karl, who in Seattle got the rap for not playing rookies, is starting Traylor.

"Erv (Johnson) kind of filled me in about him not usually playing rookies," Traylor said. "He told me Coach didn't give him a lot of leeway when he was a rookie. He didn't get to play a lot.

"Coach is trying to move me along slowly. He gets upset with me, but he's told me many a time that the reason he gets upset with me is because he likes me so much. I like that. He's a great coach to play for, even if you're a rookie."

Life here isn't quite as smooth as a luge ride. Point guard Terrell Brandon, unhappy with his contract, has asked to be traded.

The Bucks don't have a dominant offensive presence inside. They don't have the depth of a championship contender. It is much different here for Karl than it was in Seattle.

"Every game is a task," he said. "Every game here, from the very beginning of the game, you're trying to figure out a way to win. In Seattle, you started the game pretty much knowing you were going to win and you were figuring out how not to lose.

"There's more pressure to make good decisions here. In Seattle you could take chances a little more."

The challenge Karl has is to change the thinking of a team, a franchise, a city.

"It's invigorating," he said. "It's energized. It's juiced. You wake up and you can't wait to get into the gym. There are new relationships to build.

"When I signed here, I told (owner) Herb Kohl that, when we end this, whether it's four years or six years from now, I hope we part as friends."

"I talk to my owner, maybe every other day. That's the way it should be. There's too much of an impression out there that I'm hard to get along with. I don't think I am."