Isaiah J. Downing – USA Today Sports Images
The Denver Nuggets were one of the best teams in the entire NBA this season, finishing third in the Western Conference with a record of 57-25. They were also a team that many people felt could be a dark-horse contender to make it out of the Western Conference Playoffs and into the NBA Finals. However, that’s not how things eventually worked out for them.
Denver lost in six games in the first round of the NBA Playoffs to the Golden State Warriors and are now back to the drawing board. Despite their successful regular season, though, there are many people who are entirely unhappy with the ultimate result of this year for the Nuggets. Because of this, there is a large group of people that want head coach George Karl to be fired.
Karl did a wonderful job coaching this team this season. The Nuggets had a slew of above-average players like Andre Iguodala and Ty Lawson, but they undoubtedly had no superstar on their team. Denver was a team in the truest sense of the word this season and that’s the way Karl coached them.
The problem is that Karl has a history of not succeeding in the postseason. With the Nuggets being upset by the Warriors in the first round this season, though, Karl’s playoffs reputation was only strengthened and many people want to bring a coach who can “win when it matters.”
However, that’s not the right move at all for this Nuggets team. Karl did a fantastic job of making more out of less this season, something that he’s proven he’s able to do over his entire career. What most fans fail to realize is that getting to the playoffs is a great accomplishment in itself. It’s obviously not the ultimate goal, but it’s not failure by any means.
Denver fans need to be realistic in this situation, as does the front office. Karl is the right coach for this particular Nuggets team, but he ran into a bad matchup in the first round of the playoffs this year. If they fired Karl, though, they likely wouldn’t bring in a coach that could maximize the talent on Denver’s roster like Karl can. Then the fans would just be wishing they had Karl back. It would be better for everyone if they just kept Karl now.
Cody Williams is a Senior NBA Writer with Rant Sports. Follow Cody on Twitter @TheSizzle20 and like his Facebook page.
