George Karl

George Matthew Karl (born May 12, 1951) is an American former professional basketball coach and player. He spent five years as a player for the San Antonio Spurs, then became an assistant with the team before being appointed a head coach in 1980 with the Montana Golden Nuggets of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA). Three years later, Karl became one of the youngest National Basketball Association (NBA) head coaches in history when he was named coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers at age 33.

By the time his coaching career ended in 2016, Karl had coached nine different teams across three leagues (CBA, NBA, and Liga ACB). He was named Coach of the Year three combined times—twice in the CBA and once in the NBA—and won one championship in the FIBA Saporta Cup. He is one of nine coaches in NBA history to have won 1,000 NBA games, a total that included twelve seasons of fifty or more wins, and he was named NBA Coach of the Year for the 2012–13 season.

While he never won an NBA championship, Karl reached the postseason 22 times with five different teams, including a trip to the 1996 NBA Finals with the Seattle SuperSonics. Karl was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.