You know, look, George had tried to trade Cousins that whole summer, and there was not a lot of love between those two, and so there was tension there. So that was not a new thing.”
Another interesting tidbit from Amick’s Q&A with Ranadive: When asked if he would consider trading Cousins, Randive said that he would leave that decision up to GM Vlade Divac:
“Well again, I leave it up to (general manager) Vlade (Divac). What I see is a young guy who wants to win, and has actually matured. And I’m just repeating what I hear Vlade saying, so it’s better to ask him this question, but I think what Vlade really wants to see is – and the way he says it with his Serb accent – is hugs (laughs). Hugs. He wants to see hugs, and he wants to see growth as a teammate. I know that Vlade and coach (first-year coach Dave Joerger, formerly of the Memphis Grizzlies) will make the right decisions, and I don’t know. Right now what I see is I’m excited for what we have.”
In most cases, you would expect a team’s owner to say “hell no” when asked if he would ever consider trading his team’s franchise player, but Ranadive somewhat left the door open. However, it does sound more like he’s saying “it’s not up to me” than he is “we might trade him.”
