While George Karl is surprised by the backlash against his book, Kenyon Martin isn't shocked at all, calling the former coach "negative."
Excerpts of "Furious George: My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection" have been critical of Carmelo Anthony, Kenyon Martin, J.R. Smith and even Damian Lillard, whom Karl never coached. Among the reactions, Anthony said he's "past disappointed."
"My feelings for George Karl is that he is the person he is. He's showing everybody who he is, the person I dealt with for six-and-a-half years in Denver," Martin said on ESPN's The Jump. "I saw it firsthand every day -- him coming in the locker room and not speaking to people, him talking down to other people, him treating people in the organization like crap. I saw it year in and year out. Now the whole world is going to see it."
Appearing on ESPN's Mike & Mike on Thursday, the longtime NBA coach was asked whether he was surprised by the backlash to the book.
"There's no question," he said. "Surprised? Yeah, I guess there's no question we all want to be liked a little bit. The backlash was interesting. A couple of things I learned from. I think the big thing is a couple of things. I probably should've studied -- I didn't know -- I probably should've studied what I was writing a little more than I did."
In the book, Karl says of Anthony: "He was the best offensive player I ever coached. He was also a user of people, addicted to the spotlight and very unhappy when he had to share it. He really lit my fuse with his low demand of himself on defense. He had no commitment to the hard, dirty work of stopping the other guy."
Karl wrote that Martin, Smith and Anthony, whom he coached in Denver, were "the spoiled brats you see in junior golf and junior tennis." He also said Anthony and Martin were negatively affected by not having fathers in their lives. Karl appears to regret some of that now.
"I kind of had a tumultuous relationship with my son because I was a basketball coach and I was a part-time father," he said Thursday. "I said it poorly. I'm sorry that I said it poorly. And I'm sorry for the reaction because I know Kenyon. The one thing I know about Kenyon Martin is he's a good father."
Martin took offense with Karl talking about his upbringing.
"It has nothing to do with me, the way I acted toward George, it had nothing to do with the way I grew up, nothing at all," he said. "My mother did a great job raising me. So for him to take shots at her, saying I'm like this because I didn't have a father, has no bearing whatsoever."
Karl said he hasn't really seen all the criticisms and hasn't reached out to players he ripped in the book. But he also said people shouldn't take his comments as the final word.
"It's not necessarily the truth. It's my opinion," he said Thursday. "It's my opinion and my experiences. It's my opinion that comes with the frustrations of coaching. The title of the book is 'Furious George,' but it should be 'Frustrations of Coaching.'
"The game of basketball -- when you coach 100 games a year, if you win 60 percent of your games, you're a good coach. That means 40 percent of the games you're figuring out losing. ... We think there's a lot of joy. There's not a lot of joy in coaching in the NBA. There's a lot of pleasure, a lot of excitement and a lot of ups and downs. But there is a frustrating side of it.
"It's just my opinion on these people. That doesn't make what I think of these guys, or the opinions I have, that doesn't make it the truth. It's how I interpret what I was going through at that time."
Martin isn't buying Karl's reasoning.
"He looks at it as a negative because he's a negative person," Martin said. "That's who he is. And that's what this book is about."
Karl was ousted as the Sacramento Kings coach at the conclusion of the 2015-16 season after only 112 games and 14 months in charge. He posted a 44-68 record in Sacramento.
He has also coached the Denver Nuggets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors, Seattle SuperSonics and Milwaukee Bucks. Karl has a career record of 1,175-824, making him one of just nine coaches in league history to crack the 1,000-win barrier.