Characters | The outspoken Hall of Fame coach George Carl: Will his remarks still affect the NBA?

(This article was published on May 7, and the author is Jason Quick, a reporter from The Athletic. The content of the article does not represent the translator's opinion.)

Denver - George Carl rode his electric bicycle, hung in second gear, and started riding to dispel the melancholy in his heart.

Last summer, the basketball Hall of Fame coach drove more than 1,300 miles on his bike. He felt that cycling had healing effects, sunlight energizing him, while exercise helped him clear his breathing tract and let him feel the athlete again.

Carl, who is about to celebrate his 74th birthday, no longer has a strong body and abundant energy like the coach who coached on the sidelines for 27 seasons and became the sixth most winning games in NBA history. Three cancer tortures made him lose weight and his voice became hoarse and weak.

The night was a torment for him, and he often woke up in panic, fearing that he would suffocate himself. Chronic mucus blocked his throat and lungs due to seven weeks of radiation treatment in 2009 to treat cancer in the head and neck. He had to suck out the mucus like a dental assistant before he could continue to sleep.

In February this year, he was hospitalized for pneumonia. His epiglottis—a valve in the neck that directs food to the stomach and air to the lungs—at times it cannot be completely closed, another complication of radiation therapy. When epiglottis cannot be completely closed, food and water may penetrate into the lungs, making him more susceptible to pneumonia. This is not the first time he has pneumonia, but this time he is accompanied by a urinary tract infection, which makes the condition even more complicated.

In 2004, he received treatment for prostate cancer. In 2017, he received more radiation treatment for eye melanoma. Now he has poor eyesight, poor hearing, and has difficulty speaking. He meditates to relieve his choking anxiety and admits that he is afraid of death most days. “But as a meditator, Buddhists always believe that the greatest evolution is death,” Carl said.

Cancer is not his only fight. Nine years after leaving the NBA, Carl is fighting what he calls "love of life." Almost every day. He has two aspects of his struggle with basketball: on the one hand he is concerned about where the game is going, and on the other hand he is also plagued by a painful and controversial past.

He was riding in the Cresmoor community in an orange helmet on a sunny Tuesday in April. His heart was filled with cancer, basketball and past pains, and the night before, he stayed up late to watch the NCAA Championship final, disappointed that the University of Houston and its coach Kevin Sampson lost to the University of Florida in an extremely painful way. Throughout the tournament, Carl resonated with 69-year-old Sampson, an old coach approaching the NCAA title for the first time in his career. Sampson's team has a tough, disciplined and passionate style, which in Carl's view is very different from his "AAU basketball."

Carl's insomnia was not just because style defeated the essence, he couldn't help but see his own shadow. Although Carl has gained fame, wealth and friendship throughout his career as a player and coach, he has always been plagued by a sense of failure. He won 1,175 games and was smart and innovative enough to get to the most glorious stage of basketball. However, he never won the most important game.

As the starting linebacker of the University of North Carolina, he lost in the semi-finals in 1972. As the head coach of the Supersonics, he lost in the 1996 NBA Finals, and it has been two years since his strongest Supersonics were defeated by the Nuggets Black Eight in the first round. This is the first time in NBA history that the No. 8 seed lost to the No. 8 seed.

He lost to the division finals at the Supersonics, the Bucks and the Nuggets, and even lost twice in the now-disbanded minor league continental basketball association finals, when he was the coach of the Montana Gold Mine.

"I was part of a great team, but I never became a champion," Carl said. "I've always been the one who lost."

The last six words were spit out from the trembling lips, with tears in my eyes. These words are slow and firm, and the last word is more like exhaling than speaking.

"That's why I couldn't sleep all night because of Sampson, because I knew that the door might never open for him again," Carl said. "He's very, very close to winning. I've had such moments... Sometimes I feel like a loser because I've never won it." Before going on a bike, Carl learned that the Nuggets fired champion coach Mike Malone with three regular season games left in the season and a record of 47-32. Malone's sudden dismissal was shocking. 11 days ago, Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins was also accidentally fired.

These fires touched Carl's heart scars. He has been fired by the Cavaliers, Warriors, Seattle, Bucks, Nuggets and Kings, and he believes that the coach has long been the scapegoat for team issues. Every year, he is increasingly convinced that coaches are gradually losing influence in the NBA power structure.

"Maron's fire was mixed up," Carl said. "It was a sad day for the coaches, which was ridiculous. The people in power seemed to be getting stronger and stronger, while the influence of the coaches was weakening." Carl regarded himself as the guardian of the sport, the descendant of his college coach and mentor Dean Smith, who had always adhered to a simple creed: do the right thing. However, in Carl's view, basketball is now losing its direction, and money has blurred the purity and purpose of the sport.

"I'm worried about the NBA, commercializing too much. We've gone from a competitive sport to entertainment," Carl said. "Basketball isn't created for millionaires, it's about children learning to entertain, compete and build team structures. Now the soul of the sport is flooded with entertainment..

His son Kaubi was silently observing all this.

"That was the calmest and happiest time I've ever seen him," Kobby recalled.

During the process of Kaubi's growth, his relationship with his father was very complicated. Carl's obsession with work kept him away from Cobby and his sister Kelsey, and when his parents divorced after Carl was hired by the Bucks in 1998, the relationship between Cobby and his father went from resentment to anger. The relationship between the father and son began to recover in 2006, when Cobby was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and George was also diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago. "We became anti-cancer partners," Carl said.

But on the night after the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, in the bar, Kobby began to look at his father in a different light. His love for his father was obvious, heard from their stories, and seen from their faces. Listening to their teasing, Kobby began to understand his father and let go of his anger and resentment when he was young.

"When I saw him on that kind of occasion, I suddenly understood," Cowby said. "I saw that he was taking care of people, seeing how he gave these people strength and protected them. I realized that the time I didn't have the opportunity to spend with him was taking care of others, empowering others, and working with others to find answers. It made me feel great." Cowby also began to thank his father for making him a coach. After a short NBA career (Cowby played a total of 24 NBA games with the Lakers, Warriors and the Cavaliers), he became a coach and coached three G League teams. He led the Delaware Blueshirts to win the 2023 G League title.

"I've been trying to get out of his shadow," said Cowby. "And he's very supportive, letting me find my own path."

For Carl, which weekend inducted into the Hall of Fame was one of the most important moments of his life. Entering the Hall of Fame is an affirmation of him, calming the voices questioning his career without a crown and sootheing his pain of losing in major games.

"It was a very peaceful and powerful moment," Carl said, "because I never won the championship, it always hurts me. I have cried many times for it."

He held back his tears again. Those failures, especially those important games, will always be engraved in the depths of his soul. At the same time, he also understood how Kobi felt that night.

"In many ways, that night was the moment when I bid farewell to basketball," Carl said. "I don't feel like I need to win another game anymore, nor do I need to go to training camp anymore. Basketball will always occupy a very high position in my heart...but it is no longer my illness." The regret of the NCAA final and the storm of Malone being fired have passed, and now Carl is back on his bike in search of what he calls a "nature journey." Maybe he would play a ball at the Common Ground golf course where his nearly 15; or he would ride along the Cherry Creek bike trail.

Today's riding shouldn't bring back memories of his past, he believes he has settled with the pain of failure and disappointment in the NBA's future, but he still agrees with those who lost in the Finals, and he can't remember when the last time he watched the championship celebration.

"I can't deny the pain of failure, it still exists," Carl said, "but I think I've made my heart and soul accept everything I do." Part of the healing is to let go. He hopes that former players will remember good times, just like those bad times. His living room was almost covered with books, but there were no books he wrote himself. On the left side of his mantel, there is the NBA Coach of the Year award he won in 2012-13, the Red Auerbach Trophy; to the right is his Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Trophy, and his Hall of Fame ring is placed in a box on the coffee table. These honors remind him that the title is not the only measure of a winner.

Carl proudly said that his three children are smart, ambitious and competitive. If he isn't watching his son Kowbi coaching the Sixers, he is on his way to the Northwest to visit his grandchildren, where his daughter Kelsey works in the Washington State Department of Health and Human Services. Last winter, he spent most of his time traveling around the country just to watch his youngest daughter Casey represented Washington University in the football game on behalf of St. Louis. In December, he witnessed the University of Washington’s third-level national championship in Las Vegas.

"I think we are all proud to continue our father's blood," Kowbi recalled. "We dared to speak out in difficult times, not afraid to ask sharp questions, not to be ourselves. So, while people can point fingers at my father's lack of a title, I think he has raised a championship-like child."

Carl will celebrate this achievement with a new smile. He recently installed dentures on his upper palate and plans to complete the entire rehabilitation session after he strengthened his jaw damaged by radiation therapy with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. He found that when the sun was shining, he had more reasons to smile and even considered going south to spend the winter.

Currently, he lives in Denver. The city is full of vitality and the temperature is pleasant, and the NBA playoffs will begin. Soon after, he will inject steroids into his throat to strengthen his vocal cords, hoping that this will make his voice heard again.

Original text: Jason Quick

Compiled by: JayChan