George Karl hasn’t been in the NBA since 2016, but he is apparently still keeping in contact with some of his old players. Earlier this week, he had an exchange with JR Smith regarding the out-of-bounds plays (or lack thereof) that were run by the Denver Nuggets back in the late 2000s.
JR Smith Was Smoking Weed, According To George Karl
It started with Smith’s comments. The former NBA player appeared on The Old Man and the Three Podcast with JJ Redick recently, and the two got to talking about his time in Denver. The jab that Smith took at Karl had to do with coaching style.
As Smith claims, the team didn’t have a set out of bounds play for the entire 5 years that he was with the Nuggets. This, he says, resulted in the Nuggets coming up short against the Lakers in a playoff series during that time. As Smith remembers it, Trevor Ariza was able to pick off three inbounds passes to secure the victory for Los Angeles.
I’m happy for @TheRealJRSmith these days with his education, golf etc. And he’s the second best athlete I coached after Shawn!
Re out of bounds plays, I’m sure JR was smoking weed when we practiced them but it’s 15 years ago so let’s just celebrate and move forward! https://t.co/pa6vR5z8x4
— George Karl (@CoachKarl22) May 17, 2023
According to George Karl, this is far from the truth.
While the game situation may have happened, it wasn’t because of a lack of set inbound plays, he says. Karl took to Twitter to address the situation:
“I’m sure JR was smoking weed when we practiced them”
He prefaced his tweet by congratulating Smith on hi accomplishments in his post-playing career. Smith has been attending North Carolina A&T State, where he played on the golf team. He was named the school’s athlete of the year and finished with a 4.0 grade point average.
But while JR Smith was known for his freakish athleticism, there was always a stigma around him as a partier and someone who might partake in the consumption of cannabis from time to time. Given that he was in Denver during the late-2000s, Karl’s claims are not unreasonable.
They apparently didn’t sit well with Smith. Upon seeing the tweet, Smith took the liberty of blocking Karl on the app altogether. Karl took a screenshot of the blocked profile and called Smith out for being passive-aggressive.
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