George Karl wants to run another
superstar out of town. Karl, named head coach of the Sacramento Kings on Feb.
11, desires the team’s front office to part ways with DeMarcus Cousins via a
blockbuster trade. According to a report from Yahoo Sports!/FOX Sports 1 NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski, Karl is
imploring the Kings brass to wash their hands of Cousins. Here’s a piece of Woj’s report:
Karl has been recruiting Kings vice
president of basketball operations Vlade Divac and multiple players on the
Kings' roster to unite with him in making the case to owner Vivek Ranadive that
Cousins needs to be traded, league sources said.
Since the end of the 2014-15 season,
Cousins has become aware of Karl’s campaign to move him – including teammates
telling Cousins, sources said. All around the Kings and Cousins, there is a
growing belief the coach-player relationship is irreparable. Trust is a
constant theme with Cousins, and he’s been unable to build any with Karl,
sources said.
No one in the Sacramento
organization – not coaches, nor players, nor support staff – wants to imagine
the combustible scenario awaiting Karl and Cousins should the Kings try to
reunite them in training camp.
Cousins has had his share of
detractors since entering the league. His defense, laziness and inability to coincide
with the team's head coach have been criticized. Though Cousins is not a model
player—at least in terms of his mental toughness and work ethic—the talented
big man is not at fault for being unable to co-exist with Karl.
A 24-year-old first-time All-Star in
2014-2015, Cousins emerged as arguably the NBA’s top center last year, showing
signs of maturity in the process. In
fact, Divac gave the young center immense praise in March, saying Cousins is
the most talented big man he has ever seen.
"I've been in basketball a long, long
time, and I have to say he's the most talented big guy I have ever seen,"
Divac said of Cousins, who recorded the third-most double-doubles this past
season (47) despite missing 23 games due to injury/illness. "Shaq
[Shaquille O’Neal] wasn't talented -- he was just strong. I was talented, but I
wasn't strong."
The burden of the failed
player-coach relationship falls on Karl. The 2012-13 NBA Coach of the Year,
Karl has a history of butting heads with his team’s alpha dog, so it’s no surprise
he has quarrels with Cousins, who posted 24.1 points, 12.7 rebounds and 1.7
blocks per contest with a 25.2 player efficiency rating (PER)—the seventh-best
mark in the NBA.
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| DeMarcus Cousins is coming off a career-year for the Kings, but head coach George Karl wants the star center out of Sacramento. (Troy Taormina/USA Today Sports) |
Karl is responsible for Ray Allen’s departure
from the Milwaukee Bucks. Allen led the Bucks to the Eastern
Conference Finals in 2001—losing to the Allen Iverson-led Philadelphia 76ers in
seven games—but was dealt to the Seattle Supersonics at the trade deadline two
seasons later.
"It came too much to an abrupt
end," Allen said of his Bucks career. "It still seemed like there was
more to be done here. Ultimately, I think it was the whole George Karl
relationship. We started butting heads and it ended up not working.”
The United States men’s basketball
team made the mistake of hiring Karl to be head coach of the 2002 squad. The US
had an embarrassing sixth-place finish in the 2002 Olympics—the only time the
US has failed to win the gold since the International Olympics Committee
granted professionals the opportunity to participate in the Games in 1992.
Naturally, Karl had a scapegoat for
the team’s catastrophic performance in the 2002 Games. The victim was Paul
Pierce, the Boston Celtics’ budding star who was coming off his most impressive
season as a pro in which he led the league in points scored. Karl—who before
the tournament began told Pierce he was the team’s best individual offensive
player—called the young guard/forward a “selfish player.” He said Pierce’s defense
was lacking throughout the entirety of the Games. Pierce did not take Karl’s
comments lightly. Prior to a regular season contest between the Celtics and Bucks
in November 2002, Pierce ripped Karl to shreds when asked what he learned from
playing for Team USA.
''I learned not to go play USA
basketball if George Karl is the coach,'' said Pierce.
''I don't think he's a players'
coach, straight up,'' said Pierce. ''It wasn't only me, but a number of the
players didn't respond to what he was saying or understand what he was trying
to do. But me, I just play my part. I'm never going to question what he needs
to do in practices, what he needs to do in games."
''We had a great coaching staff,
[San Antonio's] Gregg Popovich [to name one assistant]. We had personalities on
the coaching staff that you could get along with, but it was hard to read
[Karl] at times, what he wanted out of certain people.''
Need more examples of Karl butting
heads with star players? Look no further than tweets from his former players,
who all indirectly reference their former coach as a snake:
If Cousins is dealt Karl will face
an even longer road to rebuild the Kings, a franchise that has not made the
postseason since 2006. The Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks are
licking their chops at Karl’s irrationality, while Cousins has taken to Twitter
to express his emotions on his coach’s trade request—using a well-placed snake emoji:
