Kings president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac told Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee in a wide-ranging Q&A that he pulled the trigger on the trade that sent that sent Jason Thompson, Carl Landry and Nik Stauskas to the Sixers because it allowed the team flexibility to acquire Kosta Koufos, Marco Belinelli and Rajon Rondo in free agency. Divac added that he also made the deal because he believes the Kings should be able to contend for a playoff spot and play above .500.
Speaking of Rondo, Divac added that he views the veteran as a leader and coach on the court and that is a big reason for the signing. Divac sees Darren Collison being able to share the floor with Rondo because of Collison’s versatility.
Here’s more on Jones’ interview with Divac and other notes from around the basketball world:
- When asked about how he learned about free agency, the salary cap and trades, Divac told Jones that he leaned on assistant GM Mike Bratz. Bratz drew mention as someone who is now on the same page with coach George Karl and DeMarcus Cousins. On the Karl-Cousins saga, Divac said the problems between the two were the result of frustration from the previous season and that trust was built in a meeting over the summer.
- Jeff Adrien‘s $1.1MM deal with the Pelicans is non-guaranteed, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets.
- Hornets coach Steve Clifford believes this year’s group is the most talented and most versatile batch of players he has had in his three years with the team, Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer tweets.
‘We view him as a leader and a coach on the floor.’ = He quit on his team in the middle of a PLAYOFF series last year. He doesn’t practice free throws and gets worse at them every year. He’s the 2nd-poutiest player in the league, behind only the other team ‘leader’.
We have no evidence that any other team in the league was in on Rondo at any price, and these guys gave him almost $10M. And traded away assets to get the cap space to do that.
You want the face of your franchise to be talking optimistically, but the playoffs seem way out of Sacramento’s reach. They’re more talented than last year, and they will be a fun team to watch, but there are too many good teams in the West for them to have a chance.