- [Narrator] In 2003, the dismal Denver Nuggets
drafted a lifeline, Carmelo Anthony,
a teenager with jaw-dropping skill
and an extremely impressive resume.
Melo was tabbed as Nugget savior,
the centerpiece of a hopeful new contender.
To develop their prized youngster
and manage the team around him,
Denver hired veteran coach George Karl.
Almost from the outset, people predicted beef.
Those people predicted correctly.
(gentle music)
So let's talk about why beef between Carmelo Anthony
and George Karl felt inevitable.
At just 19, the rookie Melo took over
as Denver's leading scorer,
piloting what had been a 17 win club
to a winning record and their first playoff berth
since the mid '90s.
Still, Carmelo was a teenager
and behaved immaturely at times.
His shot selection irritated veteran teammates.
When they said so, the rookie responded
by refusing to check into the fourth quarter of a game.
Melo made headlines off the court too.
He appeared in the notorious Stop Snitching video series,
he had a rough summer with the US Olympic team,
he entered his second season amid reports
of weed in his backpack boarding the team plane,
and people trying to extort him
with video of a nightclub fight.
It was a lot.
That '04-'05 season didn't start
too hot for the Nuggets on the floor.
Denver racked up early losses,
so they fired Coach Jeff Bzdelik,
and after a brief interim period,
hired George Karl as the long-term replacement.
Interesting choice. On one hand,
Karl had a track record of improving NBA teams.
On the other hand,
each of those teams included at least one player
butting heads with Karl.
The coach was known for pushing his players' buttons,
criticizing them in public,
and, he admitted, sometimes struggling
with alcohol and anger issues.
Most recently, Karl had led the Milwaukee Bucks
to the brink of the Finals
while also alienating his stars.
Ray Allen came to despise a coach he said,
talked more than he listened.
In Denver, Karl quickly lived up
to both sides of his billing.
He led the Nuggets straight out of the losing column
and into the '05 playoffs
with the franchise's best record in over 15 years,
and he immediately challenged Carmelo Anthony.
From day one, Karl said he'd demand things
his star might not like.
He called Anthony, a great talent who needed to learn
professionalism and whose performance had plateaued.
Kind of backhanded, kind of paternalistic,
but get used to it.
Karl would continue to praise Anthony's scoring,
but almost always with the caveat
about the other skills he lacked
or some dig at his personality.
Melo didn't help,
issuing such ringing endorsements as,
"He is the boss and we are the workers,"
and "we have no choice but to listen."
So even as the Nuggets' season turned around,
reporters wondered how long this pairing
of overbearing coach and petulant star would last.
Within just that first half season together,
George and Carmelo fed that narrative.
During a February '05 win over the Grizzlies,
Karl benched Anthony for overtime,
and reporters said they saw Melo
throw a towel at his coach.
When asked about that, the coach said, "Ask him,"
and the player refused to talk.
Both later insisted the towel stuff was fake news,
but the fact of the benching remained
and Karl raised further eyebrows by sitting Melo again
in the fourth quarter of another game, two weeks later.
Both parties downplayed these decisions.
Melo said it wasn't a big deal.
Karl said it led to a great dialogue.
A Sports Illustrated article that praised
the Nuggets' second-half success under Karl
also described practice quarrels.
Karl called Anthony "rebellious."
Anthony said he'd improved under Karl,
but also rolled his eyes about the coach
harping on his ball-stopping tendencies.
Much the same tone after some games too.
Karl nitpicks, Melo's like dude, we're winning, come on.
But despite conflict,
despite a quick playoff loss to the powerhouse Spurs,
Denver showed a lot of promise.
The next three seasons sort of stalled on that promise.
The beef stayed quiet too,
with only the occasional flare up.
Like Karl benching Melo again late in the '06 season,
then saying he and Andre Miller didn't deserve to play.
Melo just wondered why his coach
couldn't keep these criticisms in-house.
He also said he was, "The most unselfish player in the NBA."
But consider the other Nuggets storylines of this era.
Injuries galore, Kenyon Martin getting suspended
in the middle of a playoff series,
Karl's feud with Isiah Thomas triggering a 2006 brawl
that got Melo suspended for 15 games,
and Denver trading for superstar Allen Iverson
during that suspension.
That's a lot of action,
a lot of potential heat beneath the beef,
yet it merely simmered at the usual temperature.
Melo, Kenyon Martin, zany sixth man J.R. Smith,
they all had their tussles with coach,
but nothing explosive.
Anthony actually signed a contract extension
during this period for a full five years,
not just three, like his fellow big name draft classmates.
Once Melo returned from that brawl suspension,
things went fine with Allen Iverson.
The Nuggets flamed out of the '07 playoffs,
but reached new heights in the first full season
of the Anthony-Iverson partnership.
Denver set a new high watermark with 50 wins in 2008,
which, in the deep Western Conference,
was only good enough for a playoff eight seed
and a first round match up
against the mighty Los Angeles Lakers.
Noteworthy because LA creaming Denver in that series
directly inflamed our beef.
First, Melo got a DUI arrest days before the playoffs,
so that's not good.
On the floor, Melo, A.I. and company
couldn't match the Lakers.
Games one and two were double digit losses,
and by the end of an even more lopsided
game three in Denver,
tensions burned hotter than usual.
During the fourth quarter of a blowout loss,
reporters observed Melo on the bench
screaming at coach Karl repeatedly,
Don't just sit there!
Afterward, Melo chastised his team for quitting.
Karl disagreed and lamented his stars
refusing to speak to media.
He pointed out that Melo and Iverson
had whiffed many easy shots,
and he did have a point.
The Nuggets went down in a sweep
with no closure on that game three blowup.
Denver Stiffs soon rang in the era of Karl versus Melo,
while local columnist Woody Paige
diagnosed a broken truce between two egos
that had once managed a fraught coexistence.
Their relationship, Paige said, would not survive.
A summer of Melo trade rumors reportedly pushed by Karl,
seemed to validate that prediction.
However, the relationship did survive.
For a time it flourished.
Basically everyone credits Chauncey Billups
with helping restore peace.
In November, 2008, Denver traded Iverson to acquire Billups,
a local-born veteran point guard
with championship experience
alongside Karl's close friend,
and fellow curmudgeon, Larry Brown.
Billups had enough of a reputation to earn Karl's trust
and Chauncey got along with Melo,
plus, you know, he was still quite good at basketball.
It's not like Melo versus Karl was over.
For instance, the '08-'09 season included
an incident in which Anthony defied a Karl substitution,
refusing to leave the floor for Linas Kleiza.
The Nuggets suspended Melo,
Melo kinda apologized,
Karl reveled in getting to play policeman,
and everyone moved on to bigger things...
...like a 54 win season and,
at last, some playoff success.
Denver made their first Conference Final since 1985
and came remarkably close
to upsetting the eventual champion Lakers.
That first season of George,
Carmelo and Chauncey was terrific,
and '09-'10 looked even better.
Denver kept winning, and at the 2010 All-Star break,
our guys got to show off together in the main event.
Articles from this period
paint the sunniest picture of this relationship.
Friends? No.
But no longer enemies, they were making it work.
Soon after that exciting All-Star Weekend though,
the coach revealed something
he had known for a little while.
George Karl, already a cancer survivor,
had cancer for the second time.
A malignancy spreading from his neck
that would require chemotherapy.
Karl thankfully got better, but it required a longer,
more difficult leave of absence than anticipated,
spanning the rest of the 2010 season and playoffs.
Playing for interim coach, Adrian Dantley,
the understandably shaken Nuggets suffered critical injuries
and slumped into the postseason.
They suffered a grim, grumpy first round loss
against the lower seeded Utah Jazz.
Bad timing for a dip.
The Nuggets were ready to offer Melo
an extension in the 2010 off-season,
but he delayed signing it.
Meanwhile, his friends made huge free agent moves
and teased him about leaving Denver
at his wedding in front of Nuggets executives.
Indeed, by the time coach Karl came back
for 2010 training camp,
Melo had not only punted the extension offer,
but stoked trade rumors,
which turned into a trade request,
which turned into tedious months of waiting.
Then, at last, a mid-season trade to the Knicks,
Billups too.
That's a hell of a work situation
to return to after a grueling cancer recovery.
Once the trade finally resolved the melodrama distraction,
Karl fired a giddy parting shot in a TNT interview.
- Defense is commitment.
You just gotta handle what Melo gives you.
You gotta manage what Melo gives you.
Melo's a great offensive player,
the best offensive player I've ever coached.
But his defensive focus,
his demand of himself,
is what frustrated us more than anything.
- [Narrator] Melo's response to media was dismissive.
On Twitter, it was a little beefier.
I think we know who the snake is here.
Each guy enjoyed success in his new situation.
Each would weather breakups and tough seasons thereafter.
For Karl, that was more player beef,
more people calling him a snake.
For Melo, it was late-career life
as more of a journeyman role-player than star.
Both these guys' careers faded.
You know what didn't fade? Beef.
After coaching, George Karl leaned fully into a career
of multi-platform hateration.
In 2016, he published this book.
I count two shots at Melo right in the subtitle.
But if that's too oblique for you, let's read.
"Carmelo was a conundrum, a user of people,
addicted to the spotlight.
A low demand of himself on defense,
no commitment, an insufficient leader,
not as much effort on defense as offense,
not a winner, and not happy when called on it."
All familiar criticisms,
both in that Karl had expressed
these sentiments many times before,
and in that plenty of others
have said the same about Carmelo Anthony.
This, however, was something else.
Karl singled out Melo and Kenyon Martin,
as people who had made lots of money,
but grew up without their fathers,
and thus weren't shown how to "act like a man."
That line, combined with one about J.R. Smith's,
"distracting posse," ventures past the realm
of professional critique and into personal attacks,
flecked with trite, racist-sounding language.
When those excerpts came out,
Smith and Martin told the world how they felt.
Melo just sounded tired and laughed it off.
- Everybody else is kind of speaking up for me,
and then, you know, from their own experience.
So I really don't have to speak on it.
I never knew it was this much.
I never knew I was, I mean, I don't know,
what's the word, conundrum?
I don't even know what the hell that mean,
to be honest with you.
- [Narrator] Karl later expressed regret
for those lines in his book,
but the regular, old basketball critiques
continued at pace on TV.
- [Dan] So how tough was it to coach him?
- Melo? - Yeah.
- I don't think it was as tough as people think of it.
You know, it was frustrating.
He could get 10 assists a game.
He could get 15 rebounds a game.
I think he could be a damn good defender.
We never got those buttons pushed
to where he would commit to being a triple-double star.
- [Narrator] On his own podcast.
- [George] You know, he wasn't a rebellious guy,
I guess is the best wording.
He expressed his disappointment passively
and sometimes selfishly, mostly selfish.
- [Interviewer] What did that look like?
- [George] You know, taking shots
that aren't in the shot selection.
Basically he's saying, "I'm better than these guys.
I deserve more, and I deserve more attention."
- [Narrator] On Twitter.
Karl's commentary is so persistent, so repetitive,
that reporters don't even bother
asking Melo about it anymore.
Reasonable, because Karl has basically confirmed
that he just gets a kick out of trolling,
despite the response he might receive.
This sucks I think.
I don't wanna overstate it,
both men can claim successful,
fulfilling basketball careers,
including their time together,
but still it's a bummer.
In an alternate universe,
maybe George Karl and Carmelo Anthony
become one of those odd sports couples who made it work,
who buried their differences
or reached the mountain top in spite of them.
In our universe, those differences
will define their shared legacy.
Melo and George looked fraught from the outset,
and sometimes brought out each other's worst tendencies.
And just when it seemed like winning
might help them overcome, real life interrupted,
and then the business of basketball
divorced them for good.
George Karl and Carmelo Anthony never achieved closure,
and so all we're left with is a lingering beef.