There is a myth that Karl doesn't play rookies. In fact, because Karl's teams are almost always in the playoffs - in 19 of his last twenty year's he made the playofss while the one year he missed, Milwaukee finished 41-41 - his team's rarely have a highly touted rookie. In fact, the majority of the rookies on his teams in the last twenty years are almost never better the bit rotation player or boderline starter.

I went through the team year-by-year starting with his first full season in Seattle:

92-93 Sonics - No Rookies

93-94 Sonics - Ervin Johnson, Chris King

94-95 Sonics - Dontonio Wingfield

95-96 Sonics - Eric Snow, Sherrill Ford

96-97 Soncis - No Rookies

97-98 Sonics - James Cotton

98-99 Bucks - Robert Traylor, Paul Grant

99-00 Bucks - Rafer Alston, Mirsad Turkan

00-01 Bucks - Jason Hart, Joel Pryzbilla (18 years old), Michael Redd (2rd round draft pick)

01-02 Bucks - No Rookies

02-03 Bucks - Dan Gadzuric, Marcus Haislipip, Flip Murray, Jamal Sampson

05-06 Nugs - Julius Hodges

06-07 Nugs - Yakhouba Diawara (averaged 20MPG)

07-08 Nugs - Turean Green

08-09 Nugs - Sonny Weems

09-10 Nugs - Ty Lawson

10-11 Nugs - Gary Forbes, Mozgov

11-12 Nugs - Stone, Hamilton, and Faried

12-13 Nugs - Q Miller, Evan Fours

Only three top line, boderline All-stars on the list - Michel Redd, Faried, and Lawson. Lawson played 20mpg backing up Billups. Seems reasonable. Faried played 22mpgs backing up NEne in first half of the season - in a season with almost no camp and no practice time. Redd was a second round pick who was a long shot to even make the roster.

Plus since his teams are often 50 win plus, it pretty hard to argue that many of those rookies were better than the guys playing in front of them.

In you look at the results objectively, Karl has notthing against rookies, as long as they help his team win more than the guys in front of them. But, he has never been lucky (until recently) of having any good rookies on his team.