Kenyon Martin: ‘George Karl Needs to Keep His Mouth Shut’

In his defense of friend and former teammate Carmelo Anthony, Kenyon Martin ripped his old coach George Karl in hilarious fashion. From SI: “… after Martin left his Chinese Basketball Association team (Xinjiang) in late December and returned to the United States, he began to notice the anti-Anthony message coming out of Denver. Nuggets coach George Karl had routinely discussed his team’s new style and how the absence of Anthony made his job easier. The Melo-drama, as it was dubbed, clearly bothered Karl before Anthony was traded to the Knicks last February. Martin, however, said Karl’s comments went too far. ‘Man, listen, George needs to keep his mouth shut, first and foremost,’ Martin said. ‘Melo don’t play there no more. So Karl shouldn’t be commenting on Melo. If George was such a great coach, then Melo would want to stay. He wouldn’t want to leave. If the organization was ran right, he wouldn’t want to leave, so it ain’t Melo. With Melo, not one time when he was there did he bring that in the locker room when all that stuff was going on. Not one day. Everybody made it a bigger deal than it had to be. That’s a good kid. They act like this kid was a cancer, like he came in there and destroyed the locker room and made everybody hate him. No, it wasn’t nothing like that man. And it bothers me for people to be talking about how he’s a selfish player and he has to defend himself.’ The Nuggets, who got off to a 15-7 start but have lost seven of their last nine games, cut ties with a number of core players from their recent teams. ‘They’ve got the team they wanted now,’ Martin said. ‘They got all us out of there. They didn’t offer me an extension, they traded [Anthony], J.R. [Smith] is gone [to New York]. They’ve got the team they want. So why doesn’t [Karl] worry about coaching them and leaving Melo alone — bottom line? It bothers me for them to keep harping at that.’ Martin, whose Clippers fell to 19-10 on Saturday with an overtime loss to San Antonio, will be rooting for the Knicks as some sort of strange revenge. ‘I just hope [Anthony] comes in and they play well,’ he said. ‘Because if not, then it’s going to be a whole other can of worms.'”