Divac, Kings owner say they won't trade Cousins, deny Karl is pushing for deal
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The DeMarcus Cousins saga with the Sacramento Kings may not be a saga at all, at least according to Kings Vice President of Basketball Operations Vlade Divac.
Just spoke with a very irritated Vlade Divac. Said he is not trading Cousins, and denies Karl pushing for any deal involving All-Star center
— Ailene Voisin (@ailene_voisin) June 23, 2015
Divac's comments echo that of owner Vivek Ranadive, who told USA Today's Sam Amick on Monday the team will not trade their franchise center and top-10 NBA player.
"I have no idea where that's coming from," Ranadive said. "But if you like, you should talk to (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 (Cousins is) a one-of-a-kind player."
Reports emerged Monday that the Los Angeles Lakers were making a push to acquire Cousins, with Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski later reporting head coach George Karl was pushing Kings owner Ranadive to make the deal.
Karl was pushing for the Kings to trade Cousins to the Denver Nuggets to reunite the former Nuggets coach with Ty Lawson, Kenneth Faried, and Wilson Chandler, CBS' Ken Berger reported Tuesday.
Perhaps the entire story has been the product of poor sourcing and misleading information being floated by one of the three parties involved - Cousins' camp, Karl, and the Kings. But where there's this much smoke, there's usually fire, so Divac will be in tough trying to convince outsiders there's no truth to any of this.