THE PURSUIT OF LIFE AND BASKETBALL

George Karl loves holding court with the media, something he does three times the day of a game.

Sometimes, when Karl knows he's going to be talking for a long time, he requests a chair to be brought so he can sit down. The Denver Nuggets coach then pontificates about basketball or anything else anybody wants to ask.

But there was a day in early 2006 when the usually loquacious Karl found himself tongue-tied. It was the day his son, Coby, called to say he had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

"I told him on the phone, and he was just silent," Coby recalled. "It was one of

those things where you tell somebody bad news, and they just think about it. He didn't say anything for a couple of seconds. I explained it to him pretty well, about the treatment and everything about it.

"But the silence is the worse part. Because you don't know what to say. You don't know what he's thinking. You know that he's probably thinking the worst."

Karl was thinking the worst. The previous summer, Karl, then 54, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. But he had successful surgery, and had a good attitude about his recovery.

Then came the bombshell. Coby, his father thought, was a very healthy 22-year-old. He was completing his junior season playing basketball for Boise State, and the dad was hopeful he would make the NBA.

But cancer? Karl scarcely could believe it.

"You're angry when your son gets hit with that," said Karl, who said he took the news about Coby's cancer harder than he did hearing about his own. "You just feel that you failed. I did something wrong, maybe. Maybe I should have given him better nutrition or whatever. What caused the cancer? There's a feeling of, ‘Why don't you just give me the cancer and let him be free to play basketball.'"

But two years later, much of the frustration is gone. Karl says he is doing well, and so is Coby.

Coby underwent a first surgery in March 2006 to remove his thyroid and a second surgery in April 2007 to remove cancerous lymph nodes. But he has few complaints about his health these days.

Need some evidence?

Coby was a long shot to make the NBA, but there the rookie guard was with the Los Angeles Lakers on a brilliant June night, a member of a team playing in the NBA Finals against Boston. And there was his father, despite being three weeks removed from having his left hip replaced, having flown in to share the moment with his son.

It was the latest tender moment of several that have occurred this season between the two. On Jan. 21, Coby got in for the waning moments in a Lakers rout of the Nuggets, becoming just the third NBA player to go against his coaching father in a game.

On April 23, the Lakers had another rout of the Nuggets, this one in the playoffs. Coby once again got in during garbage time, and it became the first time a player had gone against his coaching father in an NBA postseason game.

Coby hasn't been active for any Finals games, and he doesn't expect to be. But he's on a team contending to win a championship, something that has eluded his father during his stellar 20-year coaching career.

The two rib each other plenty. Coby is fond of telling his dad that his coach, the legendary Phil Jackson, has a 9-0 lead in title rings.

But there is always love. And Karl said the two having cancer, in a strange way, has brought them closer together.

"April 2 was the one-year anniversary of his second cancer," Karl said. "And it was just amazing what he has been through. How far he has grown and the maturity that he has shown. I think he understands how much he's grown up in the two years that he's had cancer."

It surprises Coby that some consider him an inspiration. After all, as a rookie, he played in just 17 games for the Lakers, averaged a mere 1.8 points. But before he even made the team as an undrafted free agent with a partially