This time last week, George Karl was perched on a chair on the sidelines of the court at the Clark Athletic Center in Boston. He was there for the Reebok Summer League, as the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, to see his lottery rookie, T.J. Ford, as well as his picks from last year, Marcus Haislip and Dan Gadzuric.

He liked what he saw.

	George Karl won't get the chance to coach the revamped Bucks.

"I want to play faster," he said, "and T.J. Ford will make us play faster."

He talked about building a younger, more athletic, longer team, mentioning the acquisition of Joe Smith (who changed his name from LaRue Martin at the age of 10) as well as free agents Brian Skinner and Erick Strickland. He was changing the face of the team, the personality of the team.

He could not possibly have known that, four days later, he would be packing his bags, never to coach this team.

If that was the case, and listening to Karl that day made you believe he had every intention of coaching a sixth season in Milwaukee, then his exit from Milwaukee was indicative of his final two seasons there. Something was always amiss; in this case, it was the head coach's belief that he would return and do his job for $7 million -- in this day and age, how could he think otherwise?

But how could he not also see everything else going on around him? He saw Ernie Grunfeld leave. He saw Herb Kohl stay -- and now you really have to wonder why he didn't sell the team. He saw the last of his Big Three, Sam Cassell, dealt to Minnesota for the aforementioned Smith. After that trade, only three players remained from the magical 2000-01 squad which took the 76ers to seven games in the Eastern Conference finals.

Karl, really, was the visible presence of the Bucks. To paraphrase Don Nelson, he was the Milwaukee Bucks. He certainly never lacked for confidence, even as teams splintered around him and underachieved. The 2001-02 Bucks set the gold standard for spring collapses. The 2002 World Championship team lost three games and finished in sixth place. Karl presided over both of those disappointing squads.

By then, his coaching ability, once suspect, was no longer so. He had taken over a .500 team in Seattle (albeit from K.C. Jones) and turned it into a conference champ. But he had worn out his stay there, feuding openly with GM/President Wally Walker. He surfaced in Milwaukee, inheriting a team that had not made the postseason in seven years. He took it to the playoffs in his first three seasons. The guy can coach. No one else in the Eastern Conference beat the Nets even once in the playoffs last spring. He did it twice -- and scared them to death in a pivotal Game 5.

But he also can be high maintenance. And Kohl decided he was too high maintenance to coach the next incarnation of the Bucks, which, in the end, might be the best thing that's ever happened to Karl. For as much as he professed to like what he saw for the 2003-04 season, it's hard to see the Bucks doing much of anything with what they have right now.

Here's what's left from the Big Three: Toni Kukoc, Desmond Mason, Ford and Smith. One guy on the way out, one guy on the way up, one guy on the way in and one guy way, way down. There is no center, unless you count Joel Przybilla and the willowy Gadzuric. Oh, and Anthony Mason, who Karl just had to have two years ago, is still around, as well. He's been a big help.

	New Bucks GM Larry Harris will get to choose his own head coach with George Karl gone.

So you have a starting five, perhaps, of Przybilla, Anthony Mason, Tim Thomas, Desmond Mason and Ford. Strickland, Kukoc, Smith, Skinner, Gadzuric, Haislip and Someone Else round out the roster. This is a team that's going to challenge Detroit, Indiana or New Orleans? Well, right now, we don't think so, but never underestimate Tim Floyd or Isiah Thomas.

Clearly, this is a team in some kind of transition. They have a new general manager in Larry Harris, who, for all we know, might be the next Jerry West. Or the next Brad Greenberg. He apparently is going to be around for a while, so why not let him also have his own coach? Karl represented the past. Harris represents the future, however muddled it might be. Said Harris, "It was clear on both sides that this was the way to go."

Maybe it was clear that day when Karl learned that he wouldn't be back. But it sure wasn't clear that day when he talked wistfully about coaching a newer, different Milwaukee Bucks team. He was, he is, an astute basketball man. But just knowing how to coach is not enough in the NBA, where players come first and coaches sometimes have to build tenuous relationships with stars to survive.

Eventually, Karl's relationships with his three stars deteriorated to the point where all three were traded. He was now poised to oversee a team of no stars, unless we defer to Dick Vitale and get a plaque in Springfield ready for Ford.

Karl will resurface again. He has too good a resume not to. He's won 788 games, 13th most in NBA history, and some of those wins came in difficult situations (Golden State, Cleveland.) He reached 100 victories in Milwaukee faster than any previous Bucks coach. But this team was young (10 players 27 years old and younger) and Harris will go out and see if there is an Eric Musselman-type available who can grow with the team.

When Karl does come back again, he won't have to come back for the money -- he has plenty -- or the glory -- he knows all too well how fleeting that can be. He should come back for the pure and simple reason that he loves to coach and is good at it. But he also should come back knowing why he was out of the loop in the first place.

Peter May, who covers the NBA for the Boston Globe, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.