I saw George Karl earlier this month in Boston. He was lamenting the fact that Kevin Ollie had opted to play with LeBron James's crew in Cleveland instead of repatriating with Karl in Milwaukee, where a starting job had awaited him.

"He made a mistake," Karl said. "We're really close."

The Bucks will find out how close they are without Karl, though. It was one of those Jimmy Johnson-Jerry Jones deals, where Herb Kohl, the owner, doesn't say he fired Karl, and Karl doesn't say he quit, and everybody's happy. George gets the $7 million he was supposed to get, and if somebody else hires him before next season, the Bucks get offset relief. And now, ironically, three of Karl's longtime assistants -- Dwane Casey, Terry Stotts and Don Newman -- are among those interviewing for his old job.

But Karl, talking at length for the first time about his ouster, opted for the high road.

	George Karl admits he's gone through a 'period of grief.'

"I don't know how much I wanted to be back next year," Karl said by telephone. "Being in the last year of a contract was difficult. It's difficult for you, it's difficult for the team, it's difficult for management ... I was looking forward to working with Larry (Harris, the new general manager), and I have a lot of affection for the Senator."

Karl did want to return to Milwaukee. He says he had a lot of conversations with Harris about a contract extension, without much progress. "And Senator Kohl and I probably had two or three discussions that beat around the bush but never directly addressed the subject," Karl says. "There's disappointment. I was anxious to coach the team. But I respect them. I think I leave with the most respect that I've had with any organization."

That being said, though, Karl acknowledges he's going through a "period of grief" and that he has fluctuating emotions about his departure.

"Now, I'm fine," he said. "Two hours ago, I was depressed and I was having anxiety attacks."

Although the Bucks deteriorated rapidly from Eastern Conference finalist two years ago to first-rounders last season -- in large part because of Kohl's desire to slash costs at all costs -- Karl was happy with his five years in Milwaukee. He extended his streak of non-losing NBA seasons to 12 during his tenure and the team made the playoffs four times.

"I don't think there is any animosity" between Kohl and himself, Karl said. "He (Kohl) didn't use the word 'great' but he almost said it was five great years. I look at it as a coach, and I thought three of the five years were pretty (bleeping) good."

Of course, pretty bleeping good is probably not good enough when you're paid more than any other coach in a team sport. Karl's compensation set new standards -- and brought tremendous expectations. Karl acknowledges that the pressure to win and live up to the deal made him act out at times. He never seemed happy in his work the last couple of seasons -- unhappy with his players, unhappy with the media, unhappy with everything.

"It's incredible, the expectations," he said. "I don't know if it's jealousy or expectations. It's almost like the contract demands you do magic. I've always said coaching isn't genius; coaching is motivating and putting a team's chemistry together ... a lot of people don't remember that that contract sat on my desk for three months, four months. I didn't know if I wanted to sign it. I remember asking my dad, who was 93 years old. I said, 'Maybe I should take a year off. Maybe I should be a free agent next year.' And he said, 'You can do all of those things and still sign the contract. You can always quit.' "

Karl was looking forward to working with a new group. After the Big Three were broken up, the Bucks were planning to see how far Tim Thomas and Desmond Mason could take them. Karl says he was happier down the stretch last season than he'd been in years, coaching by the seat of his pants, letting loose with Gary Payton and Sam Cassell in the backcourt. He wanted to try some of the things he did early in Seattle, when Payton and Shawn Kemp were young and filled with so much promise.

Now, instead, Karl can do what he wants. For now, he says he plans to take a break from coaching -- though he won't get away from the game. While he would be interested in working in TV for a year (memo to bosses: please look into this), Karl will work Michael Jordan's Flight School in Vegas this month. From late September through early October, he wants to visit longtime coaching friends, take in their practices and talk the game.

	“	In academia, or if you're a doctor, this is about the time in your life that you take sabbaticals. ... I don't know if I'm going to coach next year. My enthusiasm right now is to go on this sabbatical and go in the gym and kind of get re-energized with my friends. ”
		— George Karl

"In academia, or if you're a doctor, this is about the time in your life that you take sabbaticals," the 52-year-old says. "I've been talking to Rick (Majerus, the University of Utah coach) about it.

"I don't know if I'm going to coach next year. My enthusiasm right now is to go on this sabbatical and go in the gym and kind of get re-energized with my friends ... The game has become so consuming that you don't exchange information as much as you used to. I'm gonna go see Roy (Williams) at Carolina, and Rick down there (at Utah), or Ben Howland at UCLA, and do what we used to do. You steal from everybody. Now I have an opportunity to see practice and take away the pressures of winning and losing and still have the passion of the game."

Coaching abroad has filled him with all kinds of interesting ideas, like using the system that soccer clubs use in Europe. If a team has a particularly bad season, it gets bumped down to the European equivalent of the minors the following season. George has always liked that kind of incentive-based system, and he says he'd be willing to do that with his own deal.

"I would look into a really creative contract, more lifestyle than money," he says. "If do really well, I make a lot of money. If I do average, I make good money. If I don't do well, I don't make money ... You're going to have to get young players good quicker for this financial system to work for a mid-level team. The coach is going to have to make the salary cap and the luxury tax work. We can't have that attitude of 'he's just a young player.' "

You hear the intensity through the phone. Even if George takes a year off, he will never be more than he's always been. A basketball lifer. No matter where he winds up -- coaching ball and life to kids in Milwaukee, taking another branch of the Carolina Tree somewhere in college, or finding his way back to the L -- 94x50 will always be sacred to the kid from Pittsburgh.

"I want to feel the truth of the game," he says. "I don't want to feel the (B.S.) of the game."

David Aldridge, who covers the NBA for ESPN, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.