Sacramento Kings head coach George Karl is reportedly lobbying team ownership to trade DeMarcus Cousins.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, Karl has an “intense desire” to trade Cousins despite management insisting the the 24-year-old isn’t going anywhere. Karl has wanted to trade Cousins since he took the Kings job in February, and it seems unlikely that the two can coexist for a full season.
Kings owner Vivek Ranadive wants to keep Cousins, and Wojnarowski reports that Randive has become “irritated” with Karl’s insistence on moving the All-Star center. After rumors surfaced that the Los Angeles Lakers are pursuing a trade for Cousins, Ranadive insisted the 6-foot-11 center isn’t going anywhere.
“We have zero interest in moving Cousins, so I don’t know where that’s coming from,” he told Sam Amick of USA Today Sports. “But if you like, you should talk to (Kings vice president of basketball and franchise operations) Vlade (Divac), because I know Vlade feels exactly the same way. And I’m deferring to Vlade on everything. We have no interest in moving him. From my perspective, it’s really simple: we feel that he’s a one-of-a-kind player, and we have a group of players right now and we’re going to build on it.”
Early Thursday morning, Cousins tweeted a not-so-subtle jab at Karl.
— DeMarcus Cousins (@boogiecousins) June 23, 2015
Randive had to have known this was coming when he hired Karl. Cousins made it very obvious that he didn’t want the team to fire former Kings coach Michael Malone, so you knew it was unlikely that he would get along with Karl.
