New York Knicks head coach, Jeff Hornacek, defended his star player, Carmelo Anthony.

Former veteran coach in the NBA, George Karl, criticized Anthony in his new book, Furious George. Karl coached Carmelo Anthony from 2005 through 2011 when the nine time NBA All Star played for the Denver Nuggets. Karl criticized, personally, Anthony along with other Nuggets players J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin and talked about the fathers of each player. He also called Anthony a “people user” and greedy of the spotlight.

“Selfish,unhappy,missable (sic), cowardly person. No wonder he’s be fired every place he has coached,” tweeted Kenyon Martin of Karl.

J.R. Smith tweeted it that was “sad” that Karl was attempting to stay “relevant.” Carmelo Anthony has yet to respond to the accusations, but his current coach, Hornacek, has come to his defense.

“Things like that could be a distraction. Depends how the player reacts. The biggest thing is Carmelo Anthony, for us, has been great — whatever happened in the past, let other guys talk about. What I’ve seen out of Carmelo here, he’s done everything we asked and what the coaches want him to do,” said Hornacek on Thursday before the Knicks played the Orlando Magic. “He’s been a great player for a lot of years, helped a lot of teams. People have their opinions. Just move on and let it go. With Carmelo, he knows it’s in the past, whatever it is. His focus has really been on this team and the new players we have and try to be a leader for this team. It’s very commendable.”