Karl

He consumes accumulated more than than 1,000 triumphs, arrived at 21 playoff appearances and put together 20 winning seasons. Amid autobuses in any professional sport, few are more accomplished than Denver Nuggets coach George Karl.
Entering his 25th NBA season and ninth with the Nuggets, Karl ranks seventh in NBA history with 1,076 career victories. Of the six men who have won more games, only deuce-ace – Phil Andrew Jackson, Pat James Whitcomb Riley and Boche Sloan – have a better winning percentage than Karl (.595). Karl has also notched 78 career playoff victories, good for 10th all-time, and earned 10 Coach of the Month honors, which is tied for the fourth-most in NBA history.
Since joining the Nuggets on Jan. 27, 2005, Karl has overseen one of the most successful eras in franchise history.
In seven-plus seasons, his 366 wins are second-most to Doug Moe in the team’s NBA history, while his .612 winning percentage is unmatched. His streak of eight straight postseason appearances is the second only to Moe’s nine sequentially (1982-90), and Denver’s black market of quadruplet straight 50-win seasons from 2007-2011 is the most farseeing such streak in team history. The Nuggets are one of just three NBA teams (Dallas and San Antonio) to accomplish the postseason in each of the past nine seasons.
Despite having one of the league’s youngest rosters, Karl channelized the Nuggets to a 38-28 record in 2011-12. In the appendage, he commemorated his 20th consecutive non-losing flavor – tied with Jackson (1989-90 to 2010-11) for the longest streak in NBA history. The Nuggets led the league in scoring and assists, and nearly upset the No. 3 seed Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference matches before caving in septet backs.
The 2010-11 season showcased Karl’s skills as a coach. Despite accidental injury* to a lot of key fruit instrumentalists, he pointed the Nuggets to a 32-25 record at the All-Star break, and Denver brought home the bacon 18 of thems final 25 games following a three-team 13-player trade that brought five new players to the geographical mile High City. Karl reached the 1,000-win mark with a victory in Toronto on Dec. 10, 2010, and he received a contract extension on March 8, 2011.
The 2009-10 season equaled nonpareil of high school* and lows. While guiding Denver to an overall record of 53-29 and its second straight Northwest Division title, Karl was diagnosed with head and neck cancer. He made the diagnosis public two days after coaching the Western Conference at the 2010 NBA All-Star Game and continued to coach the Nuggets for three weeks while going through intense radiation and chemotherapy treatment. Karl did not return to the bench after a March 16 victory over Washington; Denver went 7-7 in its final 14 regular-season games and lost to the Utah Jazz in six games during the first round of the playoffs. On July 15, Karl received the Jimmy V Comeback Award for perseverance at the 2010 ESPYs.
In 2008-09 season, Karl guided the Nuggets to arguably the best season in team history. With an overall record of 54-28, Denver claimed the Northwest Division title and tied the team record for most wins in a season. As the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs, the Nuggets defeated New Orleans and Dallas to advance to the conference finals for the first time since 1985. Denver lost to the eventual NBA-champion Los Angeles Lakers in six games.
In 2007-08, Karl guided the Nuggets (50-32) to their first 50-win campaign since 1987-88. It was a five-game improvement over 2006-07, when Karl led the Nuggets to a 45-37 mark, including a franchise-record 22 road wins. The sixth-place finish in the Western Conference was also Denver’s best since finishing sixth in 1988-89.
In 2005-06, Karl steered an injury-riddled Nuggets team to 44 wins and a Northwest Division title – the club’s first division crown since 1987-88. He became the fifth coach in NBA history to lead at least three different teams to division titles (also Milwaukee and Seattle).
After being hired as Denver’s coach in January 2005, Karl engineered one of the greatest turnarounds in NBA history. The Nuggets were 17-25 and stood in 11th place in the Western Conference – six games out of the playoffs – but they went 32-8 and rallied to capture the No. 7 seed in the West. The .800 winning percentage is the best in NBA history for a coach that took over in the middle of the season (minimum 20 games). Karl was named Western Conference Coach of the Month for February and March and finished fifth in voting for NBA Coach of the Year.
Prior to joining the Nuggets, Karl served as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks (1998-03), Seattle SuperSonics (1991-98), Golden State Warriors (1986-88) and Cleveland Cavaliers (1984-86). During his coaching career, Karl’s players have made 27 All-Star appearances, earned 16 All-NBA honors, made 11 All-Defensive teams and won two Defensive Player of the Year awards.
During Karl’s tenure in Seattle, the Sonics averaged 59 wins per season and won 384 games – second only to Chicago during that span. He led the Sonics to three 60-win seasons, had just one losing month and never had a losing streak longer than three games. Only three coaches have led their teams to more 60-win seasons in NBA history: Riley (seven), Jackson (six) and K.C. Jones (four).
In five seasons in Milwaukee, Karl led the Bucks to a record of 205-173 and four playoff berths, highlighted in 2001 by the team’s first trip to the conference finals since 1986.
Karl broke into coaching as an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs (then in the ABA) under Nuggets coaching icon Doug Moe. He landed his first head coaching position with the Montana Golden Nuggets of the CBA in 1980 and went on to become one of the most successful coaches in that league’s history. A three-time CBA Coach of the Year (1981, ’83 and ’91), Karl compiled a 176-66 (.727) record in five CBA seasons. He led the Albany Patroons to a league-record 50-6 mark in 1990-91, including a perfect 28-0 at home. He also coached two years in Spain with Real Madrid.
In 2001, Karl was selected as the head coach of USA Basketball’s 2002 World Championship Team that competed in the 2002 FIBA World Basketball Championships in Indianapolis.
As a player, Karl averaged 6.5 ppg and 3.0 apg over 264 games and five seasons between the ABA and NBA. He attended the University of North Carolina, where as a junior, he helped lead the Tar Heels to the 1972 NCAA Final Four, and during his sophomore season (1970-71), helped UNC to an NIT title. Although drafted by the New York Knicks in the fourth round of the 1973 NBA Draft, he signed with the San Antonio Spurs of the ABA.
As a two-time cancer survivor (Karl overcame prostate cancer in 2005), Karl is actively involved with several cancer-related organizations. He and his life partner Kim Van Deraa launched the George Karl Foundation in March 2012. The foundation’s mission is to support causes and organizations important to their family, including cancer care programs, education, animal rights and environmental initiatives. More information can be found at www.georgekarlfoundation.org.
Karl works closely with the Cancer Care Initiative at Swedish Medical Center to help provide information and assistance for cancer patients and their families. He is also involved with the American Cancer Society, the Cancer League of Colorado and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
Karl also supports Friends of Hoop, which annually hosts King Holiday Hoop Festivals – high school basketball tournaments held in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King – in Seattle and Milwaukee.
Karl, 61, has three children – daughters Kelci and Kaci and son Coby, who was on Denver’s roster at the end of the 2009-10 season. In 2007-08, Coby and George became just the third father/son duo to face each other in an NBA game and the first to do so in a postseason game as Denver took on Coby’s Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the 2008 NBA Playoffs. According to Elias Sports Bureau, there are no known instances of a player appearing in an NBA game with his father as his head coach in NBA history.

Update: IRS Website Back Online, Tax Refunds Unaffected

Yesterday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reported that several of the services and tools on the IRS website at www.irs.gov were not working. The IRS confirmed that there had been a hardware failure affecting several parts of the site.

So what’s the status today? Here’s the latest on the IRS system outages.

First, a quick update from IRS. Earlier this afternoon, an IRS spokesperson issued the following statement:

IRS teams continued working throughout the night and this morning on the system outage, and many of our tools and applications came back up this morning, including “Where’s My Refund” on IRS.gov. We are continuing our work and analysis of our return processing system; we hope to have that back up again running at some point today. We will provide a further update later today.

While the e-file system for individual and business returns remains unavailable, the IRS reminds taxpayers they can still prepare and file tax returns as they normally would. Taxpayers can continue to send their tax returns to their e-file provider; these companies will hold the tax returns until the IRS resumes accepting electronic tax returns. Taxpayers who have already filed their tax returns do not need to take any additional action.

In addition, we continue to expect that 9 out of 10 taxpayers will be issued their refunds within 21 days.

The IRS is continuing to examine the underlying cause of the outage yesterday.  It’s important to note that at this time this situation appears to be a hardware failure.

The last line is clearly intended to reassure taxpayers that there is no evidence of a data breach and nothing has happened to suggest that taxpayer data is at risk.

Just as I started to post the update, IRS released an additional statement as of 5:54pmEST:

The IRS announced it resumed processing individual and business tax returns at approximately 5 p.m. Thursday following resolution of its system outage. Many of the tools and applications came up earlier on Thursday morning, including “Where’s My Refund” onIRS.gov.

“IRS teams worked throughout the night and around the clock on this system outage,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said. “Our processing systems are back in business. Taxpayers should see little, if any, impact on their tax returns or refunds. We apologize for the inconvenience this caused, and we appreciate the support and patience from taxpayers as well as our partners in the tax community and state revenue departments.” 

The IRS emphasized that taxpayers do not need to take any additional steps or action due to the outage, including people who filed just before or during the outage. Throughout this period, taxpayers were able to continue to send their tax returns to their e-file provider; these companies have already started sending these tax returns into the IRS.

Taxpayers who have received a specific refund date from the “Where’s My Refund?” tool onIRS.gov should not be affected by the outage. The IRS reminds taxpayers that many variables factor into processing of tax refunds, including fraud prevention efforts, but we continue to anticipate that nine out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days after being accepted by the IRS. In addition, the IRS reminds taxpayers that IRS.gov remains the best place to check for information on refunds. Additional information is available at:https://www.irs.gov/Refunds/What-to-Expect-for-Refunds-This-Yearhttps://www.irs.gov/Refunds/What-to-Expect-for-Refunds-This-Year

The IRS is continuing to examine the underlying cause of the outage yesterday as well as monitoring any follow-up issues.  It’s important to note that at this time this situation appears to be a hardware failure.

I can confirm that the “Where’s My Refund?” and the FreeFile tools on the IRS website continue to be working. Additionally, the EITC assistant and the Interactive Tax Assistant are operable. Some online payment systems (such aspaying by credit card) are also working.

Although they were down last night, both the “Get Transcript” tool althoughonly by mail) and the “Where’s My Amended Return?” tool are working. Direct Pay is also back online.