One AND ONLY Cousins trade rumors thread

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VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
I take Cuz's tweet to mean he and Vlade have an open line of communication, are on the same page and both recognize the issue. The confidence to tweet publicly as he has tells me he has support within the organization, that being Vlade.
I think you and I are exactly on the same page in this regard. :)
 
I would say there is no urgency to do anything TODAY... Kings need to look into the situation carefully and then make a decision later. If it was really Karl meddling behind everyone's back, then you fire him. If this was just Cousin's agents , then you just tell them to f* off and tell Demarcus he's not getting trade.
 

gunks

Hall of Famer
Well...

I think it is pretty clear that the Kings org has Cousins back all the way in this battle. I'm sure they'll try to move forward and attempt a reconciliation.... Which probably wont go well at all, but you have to try. Despite being a manipulative old turd, Karl is a good coach. He also is being paid 10 million.

Next season should be interesting to say the least.


I picture Cousins and Karl sitting in the middle of an abandoned warehouse beneath a naked light bulb, their airing of grievances mediated by a kindly, middle aged, marriage counselor as Vlade chain smokes in the shadowy background.

"Work it out, boys! Next season we make playoffs!"
 
I wouldn't fire Karl yet until I had Thibs dialed in to be the new head coach. Sure we would take some more abuse from the national media but who gives a **** about that....they will no matter what. Fire Karl, immediately hire Thibs, at press conference...Thibs, Vlade and Vivek are solidly behind keeping Cuz. Would be epic....and quite frankly wouldn't surprise me in Kings land....nothing surprises me right now.
We have all summer to interview and hire a coach, hiring a coach after hiring Vlade. We'd finally be going about this in the correct manner, with everyone on board with one another. We'd also make it clear if you're not on board with Cuz, we'll fire your ass. I clear signal to the rest of the league we have both backbone and a willingness to stick to a plan.

There's not a single good reason to keep Karl until we have the next coach lined up.
 
I wouldn't fire Karl yet until I had Thibs dialed in to be the new head coach. Sure we would take some more abuse from the national media but who gives a **** about that....they will no matter what. Fire Karl, immediately hire Thibs, at press conference...Thibs, Vlade and Vivek are solidly behind keeping Cuz. Would be epic....and quite frankly wouldn't surprise me in Kings land....nothing surprises me right now.
They are F'd no matter what they do...so just cut ties now and try to hire Thibs. He and Cuz seem to have a good relationship and he is a damn good coach
 
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If Karl is fired, someone from the current coaching staff (Corliss) is going to have to stick around. Summer League is July 10-20. No-way we get a new coaching staff in place before then.
 
We have all summer to interview and hire a coach, hiring a coach after hiring Vlade. We'd finally be going about this in the correct manner, with everyone on board with one another. We'd also make it clear if you're not on board with Cuz, we'll fire your ass. I clear signal to the rest of the league we have both backbone and a willingness to stick to a plan.

There's not a single good reason to keep Karl until we have the next coach lined up.
Perhaps we could trade to get Malone back, seems absolutely ridiculous, but so is this whole situation. I've never seen anything like this in any professional sport before, this past year isn't just dysfunction, we are way past that, it seems like a movie or something. However if it can be this ridiculous in a bad way I feel it also can in a good way, there really is no way for the Kings to look worse than they do right now. Fire Karl and bring Malone back, maybe we will have to swap picks with Denver, worth it. We are just about par for the course then.
 
Vivek and the ownership is allowing the value of their franchise to burn down to the ground. Two years ago, they were the incoming heros that saved our city. All of that good will and trust with the fans are gone. Now, nobody will want to come here. It's never been a hot spot, but this is among the worst conditions in the NBA in a very long time. We aren't signing anybody for less than 140% of market. Players forced in by trade will leave as soon as they can. Drafting is going to be tough when nobody meets with us after workouts so we can help assess them as people.

If we pick Karl over DMC, it's going to get worse because the Kings print mouthpiece tweeted that the Kings are going to call Fegen's bluff. Over the next 18 months, he'll make the Dwightmare look like mole hill.

Vivek believes in "fail fast" and he's failing very fast. If he doesn't want to wash out quickly, they have to pull this out down to the roots one way or the other.
 
One way this might work out - Karl has every incentive to back Boogie now. If Boogie gets traded, Karl gets the blame and might be fired. If he is fired, I expect there to be litigation about the owed money (conduct clauses are lots of fun to argue over). He is also radioactive to every franchise in the league. We hired him because he had the reputation of being one of the few guys who could get teams to overperform, and the Kings needs that from their coach. That won't be the case anymore. He is now the guy who drives away stars.

If he can get in line and build the team around Cousins, he might survive. He needs to do that sooner rather than later, though. I don't care if its public or behind closed doors, but there can't be a hint of trouble between he and Cousins going forward or there will be hell to pay.
 
If Karl gets fired I want Vivek to come out in a press conference and say that he has made tons of mistakes since buying the team and that he promises to let Vlade build his team. He is the one guy in this story that looks like a clown in a local and national level. This will never work if you have a meddling owner who operates his franchise on a day by day result basis. Get your damn core and STICK WITH IT!!!

He has run this team like a tech company, proactive because tech trends are always changing. This is basketball you clown, it's not rocket science.
 
If Karl is fired, someone from the current coaching staff (Corliss) is going to have to stick around. Summer League is July 10-20. No-way we get a new coaching staff in place before then.
This is the least of our worries. Before summer league, we need to decide which sword our owner wants to fall to radically shift the course of our franchise and either rebuild or make another hire. At this point, naming Nik player / coach would have no impact on meaningless summer league and somehow not even hurt or rep around the league.

But there is a simple answer. Vivek has to coach summer league, and he can try our 4 on 5.
 
And here I have Russell pegged as the top tier prospect most likely to be a bust. Do we really want to be on the other side of a Mitch Richmond/Billy Owens deal?

Especially when our version of Richmond is (1) a dominant big man as opposed to a SG and (2) already an all-star and an all-NBA 2nd teamer, things the Rock wouldn't achieve for 2 and 3 more seasons respectively?

The Kings have had top 8 picks (7, 5, 7, 8 and now 6) every year since they drafted Cousins. And so far they've taken:

Thomas Robinson
Bismack Biyombo (as part of a trade for Jimmer Fredette on draft night)
Ben McLemore
Nik Stauskas

There's zero guarantee you even get a real player, let alone anyone who can eventually become half of what Cousins already is.
Russell is going to be a star.. I wish we could have a wager on KF for draft prospects and how they pan out their first year. It would be fun to look at predictions we all made at the start of the season.
 
Russell is going to be a star.. I wish we could have a wager on KF for draft prospects and how they pan out their first year. It would be fun to look at predictions we all made at the start of the season.
Ugh, I wouldn't have gotten anything right historically except for Rudy Gobert who I was very high on.
 
I think Karl was a Ranadive hiring, another example of the rookie owner making rookie mistakes when in the fire.

Remember what Carmichael Dave said about the night before the Kings hired Karl. That he talked outside with D'Alessandro and was told that the fans are getting what they want, they are getting Karl, but eventually they are going to have to pick who they want to keep, Cousins or Karl. This doesn't sound like a guy really on board with the Karl hiring, it was just his job to get it done.

I don't think anybody directly convinced Ranadive to hire Karl, we needed a coach as things were falling apart and Karl was the biggest available name that a lot of people wanted at the time, many on this web site actually. He listened to the fans, he wants to please the fans. He really needs better advisors than he has had in the past, hopefully Divac is that advisor.
No. Vivek had to make a move at the all star break. But he ended up making the wrong one in hiring Karl. Which I was in agreement with at the time. He should have fired PDA and said we will have a new GM and coach in the summer. Fans would have accepted it. No way would we have accepted the status quo. And Grant did say on his show he should have fired PDA instead of Malone in December.
 
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