[From the FanPosts. -Greg]

Earlier today, Carmichael Dave Tweeted the following wondering about Mullin and Karl:

I think some have sniffed correctly. I would be very curious to know about the relationship between George Karl and Chris Mullin. Very. — Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave) December 30, 2014

I had been wondering the same thing.

So I decided to do some research online to see what I could find out about their interactions together. For good measure, I also looked at other interactions I could find between Karl and management. We begin with Karl at Golden State -- well, leaving Golden State. (I recommend you click all the links as it really is fascinating history.)

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With 18 games left in 1988, George Karl resigned from the Warriors because of the stress and frustration of losing when three of his top four scorers from the 1987 playoff team had been traded, and the fourth, Chris Mullin, went through alcohol rehabilitation and missed over a month. This story appeared in the Ellensburg Daily Record on Mar 24, 1988 chronicling the news.





(http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BChVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aI8DAAAAIBAJ&dq=george%20karl%20resigned%20warriors&pg=3534%2C9078435)





Not only was Karl frustrated, but it appears the players were also frustrated with him. Specifically, Chris Mullin related how he pretty much hated playing under Karl before Karl left. The following comes from his Bio page on NBA.com





Mullin played OK, but the Warriors as a team bickered, complained and they lost -- 52 games his rookie season. And even when volatile coach George Karl took over the next season and the Warriors reached the second round of the playoffs, it was not a pleasant workplace. Years later in the San Francisco Chronicle, Mullin would admit that some of his teammates would actually "freeze'' him, refusing to pass him the ball.



"It was,'' he would later joke, "just like a family -- a dysfunctional family,'' said Mullin.



Chubby, unhappy and struggling on the left coast, Mullin was a kid from New York who didn't know much more about the rest of he world outside the gym at St. John's and the neighborhood in Brooklyn where he lived through college. The hazy, crazy days of college drinking had caught up to him. Mullin badly needed a jolt to his life. He got it from another new coach, Don Nelson, who convinced him that he needed treatment for his alcohol problem.



Mullin spent 48 days during the season in a treatment facility and returned a changed man. He missed 22 games but completed the season averaging 20.2 points, 4.8 assists and 3.4 rebounds and was on the path to stardom.



(http://www.nba.com/history/players/mullin_bio.html)

When the decision was made for Chris to go into rehab, Karl had this to say.





''I think it is good for Chris,'' Karl said of the hospital's program. ''I like Chris as a person. He has a lot of positives off the court and on. Hopefully, he'll get the problem in hand.''



He said Mullin seemed upbeat. ''He knows what he has to do,'' Karl said.



(http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/14/sports/mullin-getting-treatment.html)







"Once pushed toward what he had to do, Chris has been sensational," Karl said. "In my situation, you do all you can - hold your breath, cross your fingers, look in his eyes, try to find out how he really is. He needs it all, too . . . He knows the challenge, but only the future holds the answer to how he will do. Me, I'm an optimist, even though history says I shouldn't be.



"There are times, though, I'd rather be an optimist, be naive and idealistic rather than realistic. I find optimism to be a greater motivator."



(http://articles.philly.com/1988-02-03/sports/26241164_1_chris-mullin-training-camp-sobriety)

When Nelson arrived to head the Warriors, his will was law. Karl lost the say in decision making. Coaching under the thumb of the Warriors staff without autonomy led to Karl's frustration. He quit when faced with continuing under that leadership style.





There is no question about who is in charge of the Golden State Warriors. Coach George Karl has become a virtual puppet while new Warriors Executive Vice President Don Nelson has put his stamp on the club. Shortly after his arrival this season, Nelson confronted guard Chris Mullin about a drinking problem and charged onto the practice floor to chew out Chris Washburn for loafing. Now Nelson is taking sterner measures. He has gotten rid of forwards Purvis Short and Greg Ballard, centers Joe Barry Carroll and Washburn, and guard Sleepy Floyd -- all starters at times for the Warriors. Mullin, also a starter, is in alcohol rehabilitation.



(http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1987-12-20/sports/0170060026_1_players-chicago-bulls-warriors)





"The pressure of losing combined with the personal frustration contributed to my decision," Karl said in a statement released by the Warriors.



An announcement by the team also said Karl cited "organizational matters," but no one specified what matters were involved. It was revealed that he asked for a contract extension but was turned down by Fitzgerald.



"Looking at the situation as a whole, it seems to me that this is an appropriate time for us to go our separate ways," Karl concluded.



(http://articles.latimes.com/1988-03-24/sports/sp-149_1_karl-resigns)





On the other side, many thought Karl was egotistical and out of control. He also drank. A lot. Remember, Mullin is an alcoholic. Karl didn't think he himself had a drinking problem and responded to criticism.





"I don’t think I was dynamically out of control as people sometimes were writing," Karl said. "I’ve been around a lot of coaches. I had an ego. I was confrontational. But I think also have always had compassion, and if you play the game the right way, I get along with anybody. I can get along with anybody if you just play the game the right way.



"I can’t say I was good. I was confused by Nellie being a friend and then taking my job and then all the stories that came out afterward. It was hard. People said I was drinking too much. Just things that were said. I didn’t know where they were coming from, why they were getting out.



I asked if it bothered him when people talked about his drinking.



"I think so," Karl responded with his usual candor. "I’ve never been a mean drunk. I’ve never had a DUI. I think I’m a responsible person when I do drink. But I was a big guy. I could drink eight, nine beers."



"Do you think you had a problem?"



"No," he said. "But I went to Seattle (in 1991-92) and (president Bob) Whitsitt asked me to put it in my contract that I wouldn’t drink in public, and I did (put it in). That was acceptable to me. I don’t go out to the bars very much. In those days, you had to go to the bars to watch games. The bars had the satellites. You didn’t have a satellite at home. So where did you go to watch? You had to go the bar. Hell, Nellie would have a keg of beer right next to him."



(http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2013/04/22/karl-recalls-his-golden-state-memories/)





So basically, in the past Mullin disliked playing under Karl, and has a personal problem with alcohol. Karl was a drinker. There could be a general difference in life philosophy between them.



Karl has also been very outspoken about management at times. When he coached the Bucks he was fined for it.





Milwaukee Bucks Coach George Karl, fired by Seattle after the 1997-98 season, was fined $50,000 by the NBA on Wednesday for his criticism of the SuperSonics and General Manager Wally Walker.



"Somebody asked me recently if I would trade Gary Payton," Karl said last week. "I said, 'I'd keep Gary Payton and trade the management.' "



He also was fined $25,000 in March 1999 for disparaging remarks about his former employers.



(http://articles.latimes.com/2001/mar/15/sports/sp-38123)





I am not sure an outspoken coach, unafraid to publicly mock upper management, would appeal to Vivek and company.



As far as Karl and Pete, there are indications from the public record that they might not be BFFs as well.



Masai Ujiri left Denver May 31, 2013. The Kings hired Michael Malone Jun 3, 2013. The Nuggets fired Karl June 8, 2012. The Kings hired Pete D'Alessandro Jun 18, 2013. What this means is that Pete was the main adviser to Denver Nuggets President Josh Kroenke, because Ujiri was already gone, when the decision was made to get rid of "Coach of the Year" Karl. The following indicates, believe it or not, that one of the reasons he was let go was because he didn't play the style and players that the management wanted played!?!





The Nuggets made the playoffs in all nine of Karl's seasons, but they only made it out of the first round in 2008-09, when they reached the Western Conference Finals. That will, of course, be cited as a major reason for the change. Karl has juggled some challenging personalities during his tenure -- Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, J.R. Smith -- and kept the team afloat during the "Melo-drama" that led to Denver's landmark trade of Anthony to New York.



Beyond the extension, what were the issues between Karl and ownership? FoxSports' Chris Tomasson lays out several, writing that "management" wanted Karl to start JaVale McGee at center after giving him a four-year, $44 million extension; that he played Andre Miller too much, stunting the growth of Evan Fournier; and that he mismanaged the team's rotation during its first-round loss to Golden State.



Never mind that Karl played the series without his best shooter, Danilo Gallinari, and took a team with very little outside shooting and found a way to win while playing a fun style to watch.



(http://www.oregonlive.com/nba/index.ssf/2013/06/nba_high-5_372.html)







Karl had one year left on his contract with a three-year team option and he sought to parlay his coach of the year award and the best regular season in franchise history into a long-term extension, something Kroenke wasn't prepared to do.



So, Kroenke cut ties with the man who finished first or second in the division during each of his nine seasons in Denver.



"It was just a situation where I thought it was best for us to take a step back now than take a giant leap forward," Kroenke said.



At any rate, Kroenke said he wasn't sure Karl was the man he'd want on his bench a year from now. So, he gave the pink slip to the man he so deeply respects that he mentioned him two dozen times during a 40-minute news conference on how "tough" it was to fire him.



Ujiri and Karl did a masterful job with the Nuggets last season, taking the NBA's third-youngest team to the third-best record in the Western Conference and using a deep roster to go an NBA-best 38-3 at home.



But their regular season proved once again to be fool's gold as their up-tempo style didn't work as well in the postseason and they sorely missed Gallinari as they were bounced from the first round of the playoffs yet again, this time by the Stephen Curry-led Golden State Warriors in six games.



Still, he said Karl's playoff failures weren't the reason he decided to fire him, saying it's just that he didn't want to commit long-term to him right now.



Kroenke said he's open to the next coach coming in and changing the Nuggets' style of play. Going back to their days in the ABA, they've played a run-and-gun style to capitalize on the altitude, but when teams slow things down in the playoffs and are in Denver for extended stays, that benefit dissipates.



Although Kroenke appreciates the advantages of altitude, saying you can feel it whether you're on the treadmill at a hotel in downtown Denver or on the court at the Pepsi Center, his new coach will have the option of going with a halfcourt, grind-it-out style if he sees fit.



"I'm going to look at a lot of different people and a lot of different styles," he said.



(http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/nuggets/2013/06/07/denver-nuggets-george-karl-masai-ujiri-josh-kroenke/2402501/)

EDITED - 2/7/15

In the time since I wrote this, Karl and the Sacramento Kings are believed to now be in serious contract talks. I have also learned that Pete and Karl do indeed have a very cordial relationship, and that it was the Denver owner alone who wanted Karl dismissed. It is still unknown by me at this time how much the influence of the past relationship between Mullin and Karl may have lengthened the negotiation process to get Karl to Sacramento. I have also learned that other "non front office" parties may have had a part in the delay as well. But that is another story....

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Dave Lack was the longtime webmaster of the Bleacher Mob and Kingsfanclub websites way-back-when before real life became too hectic.

You can follow him on Twitter at @davelack

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