Here's the biggest problem with this disaster of a situation between Karl and Cousins:
If you're forced to trade Cousins then your only real option IMO is to blow things up and rebuild. And you do that by trading Boogie for draft picks, young players and cap space. You'd also deal Gay at the same time since he's in his prime now and is far too inefficient as the primary scorer. So Cousins to Philly for Noel, #3 a future 1st, a 2nd or two and maybe the rights to Dario Saric. And then maybe Gay to the Heat for Luol Deng (contract runs through next season) and #10.
I hate the idea of trading Boogie but if push comes to shove, that's the route you have to take. BUT George Karl is absolutely the wrong coach for a rebuild. He's on his last coaching gig before retirement and he has a long history of refusing to play rookies.
So if the team is going to be forced to deal Cousins, Karl is going to be the guy pushing really hard to get established veterans. And his touchstone is going to be the Carmelo Anthony trade. For anyone who doesn't remember that deal was this:
Denver received Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov, the Knicks 2014 first-round draft pick, the Warriors' 2012 second-round pick, the Warriors' 2013 second-round pick and $3 million in cash.
New York got Carmelo Anthony along with Chauncey Billups, Shelden Williams, Anthony Carter and Renaldo Balkman.
Karl will want to trade Cousins for current NBA players, not draft picks or rookies. Which likely means just enough talent (under Karl's coaching) to reach the playoffs for a couple seasons before everyone realizes there isn't a star player to carry the Kings and Karl is ready to retire anyway. To me it's a non-starter.
It also puts the Kings between a rock and a hard place. And potentially faced with the decision of firing yet another coach rather than give in to his wishes and damage the team's long term potential.
Vlade has his work cut out for him.