National Basketball Association

Karl on cusp of landmark win No. 1,000

Published Dec. 6, 2010 7:05 p.m. ET

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George Karl wants to get this over with and join the exclusive 1,000-win club Tuesday night when the Denver Nuggets visit the Charlotte Bobcats.

Not necessarily because it's just a 2 1/2-hour drive down Interstate 85 from Chapel Hill, where he embarked on a life in basketball four decades ago while playing for Dean Smith and the North Carolina Tar Heels.

And not just because he'll be facing his good friend Larry Brown, the last coach to join the club that has just a half-dozen members.

The 59-year-old Karl wants to join the elite fraternity as soon as possible for practical reasons as much as sentimental ones.

''It's been an incredible run and I do appreciate all the good players and I appreciate my time here in Denver and I'm very humbled by my opportunity to win 1,000,'' Karl said after Denver extended its winning streak to seven Sunday night. ''But, I'd like to get out of the spotlight and get it over with and continue to try to build this team into the best team we could have in Denver.''

With his 1,000th win, Karl will join Brown, Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, Pat Riley, Jerry Sloan and Phil Jackson as members of the NBA's most exclusive coaching club.

''The six before me are special, special coaches. Some of them are friends,'' said Karl, who has coached 22-plus seasons in the NBA. ''Someday it'll be fun maybe if they all get together to yell at each other.''

He and Brown are good friends who will probably be hugging and not haranguing Tuesday night, win or lose.

''He's a terrific coach,'' Brown said. ''He's overcome a lot. I think we're all proud of what he's accomplished, and I think he's going to win a lot more games before he hangs it up.''

Karl missed the last two months of last season while undergoing treatment for throat and neck cancer just a few years after beating prostate cancer. He's been given a clean bill of health but continues to monitor his recovery as he regains his weight, voice and sense of taste.

Things are looking up after a grueling fight that included several trips to the hospital last spring and summer, some of them to battle blood clots that could have killed him.

Karl is in the final year of his contract but wants to coach another three years and general manager Masai Ujiri said the team is negotiating with his agent on an extension.

Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni called Karl one of the game's grand ambassadors.

''I've known George since high school and played in the Dapper Dan against him in Pennsylvania. I've known him forever,'' D'Antoni said. ''He was coaching in Europe when I was in Europe, George has been great at all levels, as a player, as a coach, what he's done is amazing. What he's battled back from this year has been amazing. He's a lifer, he loves basketball and you see it in the way he's gone about it from playing to coaching.''

Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro counts himself among the many coaches who consider Karl a mentor.

''He's done it all in the league pretty much in a lot of different scenarios and with a lot of different teams,'' Del Negro said. ''He just loves basketball and he's been very supportive of me. I'm just happy that he's back on the sidelines where he belongs. He enjoys teaching. He enjoys developing players and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who's done it as consistently and as successfully as (Karl) for as long as he's done it.''

Before spending five years playing for San Antonio in the ABA and NBA, Karl led North Carolina to the Final Four in 1972. The year before, he helped lead the Tar Hills to the NIT title. He was drafted by the New York Knicks in 1973 but signed with the ABA's Spurs instead.

He broke into the coaching ranks as an assistant for Doug Moe in San Antonio in the late 1970s.

Karl landed his first head coaching job with the Montana Golden Nuggets of the old CBA in 1980. He was named the CBA's coach of the year three times and complied a 176-66 record in five seasons in the now-defunct league. He also coached two years in Spain with Real Madrid.

Before joining the Nuggets in 2005, Karl coached the Cavaliers (1984-86), Warriors (1986-88), Super Sonics (1991-98) and the Bucks (1998-03). His Super Sonics won the Western Conference championship in 1995-96 but lost to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the NBA finals.

Karl took the Bucks to the Eastern Conference finals in 2001 for the first time in 15 years and the Nuggets to the Western Conference finals two years ago for the first time since 1985.

Karl is 999-677 for a .596 winning percentage, but there was no hint he'd become a mainstay when he started his NBA coaching career in 1984 in Cleveland with 19 losses in his first 21 games.

''Everybody in Cleveland had me fired,'' Karl recounted. ''Two-and-19 - and made the playoffs. That was a fun season. It was crazy.''

Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony, who is mulling a future in the Big Apple - he can become an unrestricted free agent next summer and Denver might trade him before then to restock the roster - said he's glad he's going to be a part of Karl's milestone.

''When you sit back and think about having 1,000 wins, that's a lot of damn wins, man. You sit back and think about how many seasons and how many wins you have to have in each season, that's a lot. We want to get it done for him,'' Anthony said.

Anthony said there would be no big celebrations, however.

''No,'' he said. ''I'm going to pat him on his back and tell him congrats and get on to Boston.''

Just the way Karl wants it.

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AP Sports Writer Mike Cranston contributed.