Furious George: My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection

In his first book, Karl, a successful, well-traveled NBA head coach (most recently of the Sacramento Kings), writing with Sampson (The Masters), promises to settle old scores and get in the last word. Given his history of talking openly, this is a delightful promise—but his work soon proves annoying and guarded. There are highlights, such as his descriptions of what it’s like to coach a game and how his intensity for work isolated himself from his family, including his son. He examines his relationships with mentors such as Dean Smith to players they coached. He says Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony was a “conundrum” and a “user of people,” and his star player in Sacramento, DeMarcus Cousins, “was the most disrespectful person I’ve ever been around,” but his criticism is more petty than revealing. Though Karl talks about how his 2010 diagnosis of throat and neck cancer changed his approach to work and diet, he mostly fails to address his own performance at his six NBA coaching stops—all of which ended on less than congenial terms. After a rocky, abbreviated stint in Sacramento, the 64-year-old Karl hints that he’d like to coach again. That may explain the frustrating honesty-with-limits approach employed here. Agent: Byrd Leavell, Waxman Leavell Literary. (Jan.)