Sonics Bid Adieu To Coach Karl

May 26, 1998 / 10:00 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Two weeks after his Seattle SuperSonics were eliminated by the Los Angeles Lakers in the playoffs, George Karl was fired as coach on Tuesday.

Karl, 47, coached the Sonics for 6 ½ seasons and had the best winning percentage (.719, 384-150) in the team's regular-season history. Under Karl, the team had three 60-victory seasons.

"I've had an interesting couple of weeks," team president and general manager Wally Walker said in announcing Karl's firing. "It was an extremely difficult decision to make."

It might have been difficult but it wasn't unexpected after the Sonics were beaten four straight by the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals, the first four-game losing streak of Karl's tenure in Seattle.

Karl was paid $3.2 million in the last season of a contract that expires July 1.

"Our decision is based entirely on what we believe in the team's best interest of going forward," Walker said. "It's not about money. It's not personal."

Walker said the decision to fire Karl was his alone, and not that of owner Barry Ackerley. Walker made it during the weekend and told Karl on Tuesday morning.

He said he believed Karl wanted to stay in Seattle and "was disappointed" when he found out found he wasn't going to be re-hired.

Two years ago, Karl coached the Sonics into the NBA Finals, in which they lost in six games to the Chicago Bulls.

While Walker said the decision not to retain Karl wasn't about money and wasn't personal, those were two factors that weren't on Karl's side of staying in Seattle.

He isn't expected to stay unemployed long and probably will command a salary of $5 million from some team next season.

Karl's Columbus, Ohio-based agent, Bret Adams, suggested his client won't be unemployed long. "If he's unemployed, I think it's going to be his decision to decide what he wants to do. I mean, a coach that has a winning percentage like he did and makes the playoffs for seven straight years, he should be a commodity."

Adams said he and Karl will "determine who's going to talk to him and evaluate what's out there. He has said on more than one occasion he's perfectly willing to take a year off and evaluate what's there."

Ackerley and Walker were unhappy with Karl because they viewed him as a loose cannon who leaked information to the media.

"I don't think George is about to change," Walker said. "I don't want to be in a position where I can't trust him to keep secret information that is very sensitive and can't get out."

Walker deliberately didn't tell Karl before the Sonics were involved in a three-team trade that brought Vin Baker to Seattle and sent Shawn Kemp to Cleveland before last season.

Still, Karl's departure from Seattle probably was more about the Sonics' playoff failures thn anything else.

Ackerley complained before the playoffs that he didn't have a championship ring.

Under Karl, the Sonics had a 40-40 playoff record, losing to Houston in the Western Conference semifinals in 1997. They were upset by Denver as the No. 1 seed in the West in 1994 and lost in 1995 to the Lakers in another upset.

After the Lakers beat Seattle in 1995, then team president and general manager Bob Whitsitt was fired by Ackerley. Whitsitt now is president and general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers under owner Paul Allen and also is president of the NFL Seattle Seahawks, a team Allen owns.

"We're ultimately making this decision for the right reasons," Walker said of Karl's firing. "We're doing it to have a chance to attain our primary goal that of winning the championship. We need a different approach."

The contracts of assistants Bob Weiss, Tim Grgurich, Dwane Casey and Terry Stotts expire July 1. The team will give a new coach the option of keeping them or, if the new coach chooses not to, will recommend them to other teams, spokeswoman Cheri White Hanson said.

Walker said he met with Karl for "a couple of hours" on May 15, three days after the season ended. He said he ended his conversation with Karl by asking him "for a number that it would take in order for him to be satisfied as the Sonics coach."

He said subsequent information he received convinced him that he was not going to keep Karl happy in Seattle.

"He is an emotional guy and this firing professionally it doesn't hurt him but emotionally no one wants to get fired," Adams said. "His father is in Seattle and I think it's tough for his son and father and wife to have their guy fired, and from an emotional standpoint I think it's real tough for him. Professionally, I think he'll bounce back."

Walker said he hoped to have a new coach hired before the NBA draft on June 24. He said he wanted Karl's replacement to be an experienced coach because the Sonics, led by All-Star point guard Gary Payton and Baker, are an older team.

Karl, who took over for K.C. Jones on Jan. 23, 1992 after leaving the Real Madrid team in Spain, got the Sonics to the playoffs in all seven of his seasons in Seattle.

It was the third time that Karl, a former player with the San Antonio Spurs in the ABA and then NBA, was fired as a coach.

He was fired by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1986 and then by the Golden State Warriors two years later.