Earlier in the day it was reported that the Los Angeles Lakers, desperate to do anything to bring in fresh talent, had some interest in trying to acquire a franchise cornerstone big man. It appeared that the Lakers were interested in acquiring the star of the Sacramento Kings, DeMarcus Cousins.
While the exact details of how a trade between the two California teams was unclear, Kings owner Vivek Ranadive made one thing crystal clear. The team has no interested in moving their All-star big man.
Following from Sam Amick of USA Today.
“We have zero interest in moving Cousins, so I don’t know where that’s coming from,” Ranadive said when asked about an ESPN.com report in which a Kings-Los Angeles Lakers-Orlando Magic trade scenario was discussed. “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.”
While Divac could not be reached for comment, he told The Sacramento Bee this week that “That (a Cousins trade) is not happening, but I would love to do something, a smaller move, before the draft.”
Divac did make it known on more than one occasion that there was no possibly deal right now that would convince the Kings to trade Boogie Cousins away. Not even for Michael Jordan. Vivek definitely has stepped aside to let Vlade do his job.
Being the new man in charge, Divac has some work ahead of him. He needs to fix some of the mistakes of the prior Pete D’Alessandro regime, get some new talent and work on making his superstar big man happy. DeMarcus has voiced his frustrations previously about not being consulted on different coaching decisions but the team taking a firm stand on keeping him has to make Cousins happy.
At this point, if any team wants Cousins, it’s going to take the almighty ‘godfather deal’. Someone would need to throw the house at the Kings if Sacramento even would consider a trade for DeMarcus Cousins.
