Nuggets Coach George Karl Says He'll Return To Coaching Next Season

George Karl went through the fight of his life last year, as his throat cancer kept him off the bench as the Nuggets entered the playoffs. Without him, his team sputtered, and now, the Nuggets are in flux thanks to Carmelo Anthony all but demanding a trade to another team.

But luckily for the Nuggets, they will once again have their head coach. In an interview with Dave Krieger of the Denver Post, Karl said he will return to the bench next season.

"It's official," Karl said Thursday just before taking off for a long Labor Day weekend with family. "I've been cleared to go for it. My PET scan came back great."

Karl is still not fully recovered from chemotherapy and radiation treatment, but the PET scan he had was "excellent," so he should be good to go. He told Krieger that he will have several more PET scans in the next year. 

Karl also thinks the situation with Anthony will work itself out.

"For some reason, our P.R. in the summer, it seems like people like to think that we're going to be awful. And I just go, why? Why do they think this? We've put three 50-win seasons on the board. Even without Melo I think we're a good basketball team.

"I think we're going to work something out with Melo and it's going to come out positive for Denver Nugget basketball. I don't know what that is, but that's my belief inside, it's my positive energy that I now can push on basketball a little bit more than I push on my health."

For more, check out Denver Stiffs and SB Nation Denver. 

When George Karl was first diagnosed with throat cancer, the Nuggets hoped he could return to coaching by early April, well before the start of the NBA Playoffs. However, new developments have caused the Nuggets to push back that timeframe until the beginning of the playoffs or possibly later.

Yahoo! Sports' Marc Spears reports. 

Karl recently needed treatment for blood clots in his legs and lungs that surfaced while he was already undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment for throat cancer, the sources said. The blood clots were treated successfully and Karl is expected to complete his cancer treatment at the end of next week, but the Nuggets aren't confident he'll feel strong enough to resume coaching at the start of April as was initially hoped. 

Privately, Nuggets officials are concerned that Karl might not even be ready by playoff time, according to Howard Beck of the New York Times. Beck reports that the Nuggets are hoping Karl will be ready by the playoffs, but that a return is "far from certain."

If Karl cannot return by the postseason, it will mark the first time a playoff team began the playoffs without their head coach.

Andrew Feinstein of SB Nation's Nuggets blog, Denver Stiffs, once started the website FireGeorgeKarl.com. And just a few years later, he's become close enough to Karl's inner circle that the Nuggets asked him to attend last night's press conference as a show of support. Pretty amazing, no? Here's an excerpt from a pretty moving account of what sounded like an incredibly emotional night at the Pepsi Center on Tuesday:

Choking up from the start, Karl relayed the series of events that led up to this press conference starting from feeling a lump on his neck before New Year's to the possibility of missing games and/or practices due to his "fatigue level."  Karl said that he had "an emotional desire to stay with the team" but that he will have to undergo "six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy."  Karl said he believes he has "a championship team" here in Denver and that he "wants to continue coaching," but that there's a possibility he'll miss games and/or practices based on his "fatigue level."  Karl specifically mentioned that he won't be coaching at Golden State or at Minnesota in the coming weeks, but that the cancer is "curable and treatable" and he hopes to be "100% for the playoffs."  Karl also confidently said that he's "ready for the competition with cancer."

[...]

Karl said that he wakes up every morning and says to himself: "Oh, shit.  I have cancer."  And finished that thought by saying "there's no guaranteed contracts in this" while getting choked up some more to the point that he couldn't really speak anymore.

It's one of those moments in life that is truly too bizarre to make up. Fresh off coaching in the NBA All-Star Game, coaching one of the best teams in basketball, and signing a lucrative contract extension, suddenly, all of those triumphs are meaningless, and Karl's left relatively helpless in a fight for his life. "There's no guaranteed contracts in this..."

It's a reminder that beyond basketball—with all the outsized egos, millions of dollars, Hall-of-Fame resumes, and fans starting websites like FireGeorgeKarl.com—these are still just humans. People that gather for a dinner with the in-laws at the Cheesecake Factory, just like you or me. Does that mean we stop criticizing them or treat them any differently? No. It comes with the territory of their profession (and mine). But still.

It's just... bizarre. Earlier this year I wrote a post titled The Nuggets Have George Karl Disease. And now George Karl has an actual disease, and it's life-threatening, and puts all the rest of this in proper perspective. Every now and then life reminds us that we're utterly powerless over everything. This is one of those moments. For George Karl, for Nuggets fans, for Andrew Feinstein and the guys at Denver Stiffs... Everyone. You don't need to have cancer yourself to understand what it can mean, just like you don't have to get shot to understand the power of a gun. In both cases, there's a finality involved that make everything else in life look like child's play.

With that in mind, here's to hoping Karl and the Nuggets can get back to child's play real soon.

Nuggets head coach George Cancer will take a leave from the team to fight throat cancer, it was announced Tuesday night. He hopes to be "near 100 percent" by the time the NBA playoffs start in mid-April.

Karl has been diagnosed with squamous cell cancer in his neck and throat.

He will have approximately six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy treatment, which start Tuesday. Surgery is not planned on the tumor.

Karl first saw a doctor on Dec. 30, then had a biopsy.

Karl is heading into the battle with a positive outlook, saying, "I believe this is a cureable and treatable disease."