Kings Owner Blocking George Karl From Trading DeMarcus Cousins To LA Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers are looking to add forward DeMarcus Cousins to their team. There is one problem though. Kings Coach George Karl is all for the trade but owner Vivek Ranadive feels otherwise. Ranadive believes Cousins should stay home with the Kings. His mantra goes against the reason why the team hired Karl. Since becoming coach of the Kings, Karl was granted the power to draft players and make trades in some cases. In terms of this Cousins trade though, his hands are tied.

On Monday Ranadive told USA Today Sports that he has no interest in trading Cousins. This goes against an earlier report where Karl said anybody was tradable.

"We have zero interest in moving Cousins, so I don't know where that's coming from," Ranadive told USA Today. "But if you like, you should talk to (Kings vice president of basketball and franchise operations) Vlade (Divac), because I know Vlade feels exactly the same way. And I'm deferring to Vlade on everything. We have no interest in moving him. From my perspective, it's really simple: we feel that he's a one-of-a-kind player, and we have a group of players right now and we're going to build on it."

Even though the Kings have been adamant about not moving Cousins, the Lakers are still trying hard to bring him aboard. The Orlando Magic, Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets are also interested in him.

Last year the 24-year-old played in 59 games and averaged 24.1 points a game. That's higher than his career average of 18.9 points per game. Cousins keeps getting better and better so if the team owner doesn't want to trade him, you can see why.

How do you think the DeMarcus Cousins trade will pan out? Will he be leaving the Kings for yellow and purple pastures?