Sacramento Kings NBA 2015 news: George Karl to be sacked because of DeMarcus Cousins trade rumors?

Wikipedia

There is a bit of fiasco with the Sacramento Kings as team owner Vivek Ranadive is considering the firing of new head coach George Karl with the 2015-16 season not starting yet.

Karl became the new Kings head coach last February and inked a four-year deal replacing Mike Malone who was currently hired as the Denver Nuggets head coach.

After the hiring, Karl was reportedly given authority in making draft and trade decisions.

Before his arrival in Sacramento, Karl expressed his eagerness to coach All-Star center DeMarcus Cousins but had an unpleasant relationship with the big man since he handled the team then and wanted to trade him since then according to ESPN's source.

Because of this, Karl and Cousins have not spoken for months with the big man being linked to a number of trade rumors.

ESPN reported that Karl's desire to get rid of Cousins by trading him makes Ranadive consider firing the team's new head coach without an immediate replacement in sight.

But a source said in ESPN's report, firing the 64-year-old coach is not the answer as it will only give Cousins power over the franchise.

"If you fire Karl, now you can't control Cousins because he'll know he's running the place. Now he'll feel like he's telling you what to do," the source said.

There is no certainty that Karl will get sacked but a source told ESPN that Ranadive has been speaking of it in the past few days.

The Kings owner already said a number of times that they will not part ways with Cousins and is being backed up by team vice president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac.

But in a recent report, Ranadive already granted Cousins' agent Dan Fegan approval to create a trade deal before draft night sending the All-Star big man to the Los Angeles Lakers although no deal was reached so far.