Before George Karl was an NBA head coach, before leading the Seattle SuperSonics to the NBA Finals, before stints as head coach in Milwaukee, Denver and Sacramento, before collecting 1,175 wins on the sideline, Karl was a heady, 6' 2" point guard with the then–American Basketball Association’s San Antonio Spurs, spinning the red, white and blue ABA basketball until the league merged with the NBA in 1976.
Karl has not coached since 2016, but he has not stopped working. These days he’s an executive producer of Soul Power, a four-part documentary on the rise and fall of the ABA that is streaming now on Prime Video. Karl joined me for a conversation about the ABA, its legacy and what a coach with decades of experience thinks of what today’s NBA has become.
