Vlade Divac Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Western Notes: Smith, Kings, Durant

July 26th, 2015 at 5:45pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Russ Smith‘s minimum salary became fully guaranteed at the end of Saturday when the Grizzlies elected not to waive him. He’d had a $150K partial guarantee on that salary that he picked up July 15th, as the schedule of salary guarantee dates shows.

Here’s more from the Western Conference:

The Kings are parting ways with analytics guru Dean Oliver, Bill Herenda of CSN California confirms. This move is not necessarily an indication that the team is moving away from a data-driven approach. Sacramento is looking to hire someone to replace Oliver, Marc Stein of ESPN.com tweets.
The reason behind the move is that vice president of basketball operations Vlade Divac wants to assemble his own hand-picked front office cabinet, Stein adds (Twitter link). It was reported yesterday that former Kings star Peja Stojakovic received an offer to join the front office.
Kevin Durant, who is still recovering from his foot surgery that ended his season, will visit the team USA minicamp next month in Vegas and clearly wants to be part of the program, Sam Amick of USA Today reports (Twitter link). The Olympic games will be in August of 2016, which is roughly a month after Durant is eligible to sign a new contract.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Pacific Notes: Suns, Young, Karl

July 14th, 2015 at 8:13pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Suns have an outmoded local TV deal that squeezes their revenue, and they struggle to draw when they don’t make the playoffs, Grantland’s Zach Lowe reports, suggesting that’s behind owner Robert Sarver’s aggressive push to get the team back to the postseason. Phoenix came up short in its strong pursuit of LaMarcus Aldridge, but Sarver insists to Lowe that the Tyson Chandler deal wasn’t made solely in an effort to woo Aldridge. The cap-clearing Marcus Morris trade was a signal of the team’s interest in Aldridge, but Phoenix also made it out of a desire to open playing time for other wing players, T.J. Warren in particular, Lowe writes.

Here’s more from the Pacific Division:

Lakers swingman Nick Young has been the subject of trade rumors this offseason, but the team currently has no plans to deal the scorer, Bill Oram of The Orange County Register tweets. According to Oram, the Lakers had shopped Young in an effort to clear some quick cap room, but no enticing offers materialized.
Despite the rocky start to their relationship, Kings coach George Karl believes he and center DeMarcus Cousins can coexist in Sacramento, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports relays. “I just said hello to him this afternoon,” Karl told Spears. “I don’t think it’s something we have to rush through. You got two guys that are very frustrated with losing, two guys that are somewhat stubborn and two guys that love to compete. Sometimes, that doesn’t work the first time you hang around. But you have to take your time to make it work. I’m very confident to make it work.“
During his offseason dealings, Kings vice president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac tried to sell players on the changing culture of the Sacramento organization, Spears adds. When asked what his sales pitch was to free agents, Divac said, “We are changing the culture and we want to make a team that’s going to have the same energy that we had during my time because Sacramento needs that. They believe in it and I believe it. We really put good talent over there and now it’s up to Coach to put it together.“
Rajon Rondo believes that he can rebuild his free agent value this season with the Kings, writes Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. “I’ve been faced with challenges my whole life,” said Rondo. “A lot of people didn’t expect me to come this far in the NBA. I have no doubts about what my talents can do and what I can bring to the team and I’m looking forward to putting my work in and getting the job done.”

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Kings Reach Out To John Calipari

June 30th, 2015 at 11:39am CST by Chuck Myron

11:39am: The Kings deny Wojnarowski’s report, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee.

11:02am: Calipari, as he’s done in the past, took to Twitter to say that he’s not looking for another job and that the Kings haven’t offered him one. He acknowledged talking to Ranadive about Cousins and No. 6 overall pick Willie Cauley-Stein, but wrote in all capital letters, “I will be at Kentucky.” (All five Twitter links here).

10:16am: Kings owner Vivek Ranadive and other members of his ownership group have spoken with Kentucky coach John Calipari to feel out his interest in coaching the team and running its front office, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. It would require a multiyear contract worth at least $10MM a year to lure him, Wojnarowski adds, but Sacramento has had lawyers examine the contract of coach George Karl to see if he can be fired with cause for reportedly speaking to other teams to see if he can arrange DeMarcus Cousins a trade, as Wojnarowski details. It’s a long shot that the Kings would be able to terminate Karl in such a way that would allow them to recoup the nearly $10MM in guaranteed money left on his deal, which runs another three years.

Ranadive is going after Calipari in part to see if he can convince Cousins to change his mind about his desire to be traded to the Lakers, according to Wojnarowski, a desire that has reportedly come about amid Karl’s apparent quest to see him traded. Calipari coached Cousins during the center’s lone season at Kentucky.

Hiring Calipari would represent yet another shift for the Kings under Ranadive, who’ve already employed three coaches and two front office chiefs since he took control of the franchise two years ago. League officials and confidants of the owner have tried to prevail upon him to stop his frequent shakeups, sources tell Wojnarowski. Ranadive replaced former GM Pete D’Alessandro atop the front office structure this spring with vice president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac, but executives and agents grew frustrated in dealing with Divac at draft time, as the newly minted executive is unfamiliar with salary cap and collective bargaining agreement rules, Wojnarowski hears. Ranadive considered hiring NBA vice president of basketball operations Kiki Vandeweghe to lead the front office before turning to Divac, Wojnarowski reports.

Calipari has consistently maintained he’s satisfied at Kentucky even as he continues to listen to overtures from the NBA. He had a level of interest in the Pelicans this spring, but New Orleans didn’t want him to lead its entire basketball operation, according to Wojnarowski.

Pacific Rumors: Cousins, Lakers, Booker

June 27th, 2015 at 4:47pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Kings owner Vivek Ranadive gave agent Dan Fegan permission to try to engineer trade proposals that would send DeMarcus Cousins to the Lakers once Fegan made it clear that Cousins, his client, wanted out, but Kings front office chief Vlade Divac is instead trying to see if the Kings can carry on with both Cousins and coach George Karl, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick. “I’ll be honest with you, how I think right now, I think [Cousins and Karl] got the message yesterday,” Divac said on KHTK 1140 Friday (audio link), as Amick relays. “So here I am, and if you’re on board, [you’re] more than welcome. If you’re not, I’ve got to go. I can’t wait. We do have everything except time. We have to go forward and try to make it a healthy environment and try to have a good team for next year. Look, we’re going to have ups and downs in the next couple months. And you’re going to hate me, you’re going to love me, but believe me I’m going to do the best I can to make this thing work. With me, with DeMarcus, with George, or without me, without DeMarcus, without George, I don’t know. But we’ll make it work.”

In other news around the Pacific Division:

The Lakers made the right move by selecting D’Angelo Russell over Jahlil Okafor, Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com opines. Russell’s ability to score and distribute made more sense than a pairing of Okafor with last year’s lottery pick, Julius Randle, which would have clogged up the middle with two low-post isolation players, Howard-Cooper continues. There are also questions about Okafor’s conditioning, which isn’t an issue with Russell, Howard-Cooper adds.
Suns coach Jeff Hornacek has added Jason Fraser to his staff as a player development coach focusing on the team’s big men, Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic reports. The Suns have also added Earl Watson and Nate Bjorkgren as player development coaches since the end of the season, Coro adds.
The Suns were pleasantly surprised that Devin Booker dropped to their pick at No. 13 overall, Coro writes in a Q&A with Hornacek. Phoenix expected the Hornets to draft him at No. 9 and tried to trade up but Charlotte instead chose Frank Kaminsky and Booker fell into its lap. “We really thought Devin Booker was going to go nine at Charlotte. That was the big talk,” Hornacek said. “You’re always looking to get up to get a guy you want. Nothing like that happened and, as it went on, we said, ‘We might get him anyway.’ So it worked out well.”

Kings Have Considered Firing George Karl?

June 26th, 2015 at 1:23am CST by Zachary Links

FRIDAY, 1:23am: Vice president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac said the issues are between himself and Karl, not Ranadive and Karl, as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee relays (Twitter links). Divac didn’t elaborate, but Jones hears that he didn’t like Karl going behind his back to negotiate possible trades. Divac nonetheless added that he has no shortage of respect for Karl and wants to believe that Karl and Cousins can work with each other, Jones also tweets.

“I respect my coach and I think he’s great but he has to trust me to do my job. That’s all,” Divac said, according to Jones (Twitter link).

5:17pm: Credible sources inside the Kings issued strong denials that the team has made Karl’s job status a matter of discussion, tweets Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee.

4:56pm: Karl is no longer in the loop on draft discussions, Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times tweets.

THURSDAY, 4:01pm: Kings owner Vivek Ranadive has considered firing George Karl, according to Chris Broussard of ESPN.com. Ranadive is upset with Karl’s desire to trade center DeMarcus Cousins, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

No potential replacement for Karl has been mentioned or considered yet, according to Broussard. Meanwhile, firing Karl will not be a panacea for the tensions between Cousins and the franchise.

“If you fire Karl, now you can’t control Cousins because he’ll know he’s running the place,” the source told Broussard. “Now he’ll feel like he’s telling you what to do.”

No firing is imminent, which perhaps explains Broussard’s usage of the past tense in saying Ranadive has “considered” the move, but the owner has broached the subject with team execs over the last few days, per the source. When Ranadive was considering hiring Karl in February, some members of the organization told him it was a bad idea. Recently, the owner told at least one of those people that he was right.

The Kings hired Karl In February, giving him a four-year deal worth $14.5MM. Karl is guaranteed $11MM in total.

Pacific Notes: Divac, West, Clippers

June 12th, 2015 at 8:38pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Kings owner Vivek Ranadive tried to bring Vlade Divac in as a goodwill ambassador and basketball adviser last year, but GM Pete D’Alessandro and adviser Chris Mullin mounted strong opposition that derailed the move, according to Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee. Of course, Ranadive brought Divac this year to head the basketball operations department, bumping the now-Nuggets-bound D’Alessandro from that role.

Here’s more from the Pacific Division:

The Clippers will hold workouts on Saturday for Aaron White (Iowa), David Kravish (California), Treveon Graham (VCU), Julian Washburn (UTEP), Quinn Cook (Duke), and Ryan Boatright (UConn), Ben Bolch of The Los Angeles Times relays (Twitter links).
While they don’t currently possess any picks in this year’s NBA Draft, the Clippers will look to acquire a second round pick on draft night, Arash Markazi of ESPN.com tweets.
Warriors adviser Jerry West threatened to resign last offseason if the team went ahead and dealt Klay Thompson in exchange for Kevin Love, Chris Ballard of SI.com writes in his profile of West. West predicted that Thompson’s defense would improve, and that the pairing of he and Stephon Curry would give Golden State a Hall of Fame backcourt for the next decade, Ballard adds.
The Lakers will bring in St. John’s guard Phil Greene as part of a group workout on Saturday, Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops relays (via Twitter).

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Western Notes: Divac, Grizzlies, Pack

June 11th, 2015 at 7:21pm CST by Eddie Scarito

One of the strangest aspects of the Kings‘ hiring of Vlade Divac as the team’s president of basketball and franchise operations is that no one but Divac and team owner Vivek Ranadive actually understood he’d be in a powerful basketball operations position until a few days after the announcement, Tom Ziller of SBNation writes. It was assumed that because Divac had extremely limited prior front office experience, he would be more of a figurehead than being actively involved in personnel decisions, Ziller notes. There were even members of Sacramento’s front office who didn’t realize that Divac had the power to make personnel moves until Divac and Randive relayed that information to the media, the SBNation scribe adds.

Here’s more out of the Western Conference:

The Grizzlies have workouts scheduled on Sunday for Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (Arizona), Cady Lalanne (Massachusetts), Denzel Livingston (Incarnate Word), Norman Powell (UCLA), J.P. Tokoto (North Carolina), and Maurice Walker (Minnesota), the team announced via a press release.
The Nuggets are expected to work out Murray State point guard Cameron Payne, who is rocketing up draft boards, this Monday, Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post tweets.
Robert Pack has signed on to be an assistant on the staff of new Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reports (Twitter link).
Working out for the Suns today were Bryce Dejean-Jones (Iowa State), Mouhammadou Jaiteh (France), Derrick Marks (Boise State), Michael Qualls (Arkansas), Chasson Randle (Stanford), and TaShawn Thomas (Oklahoma), Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic notes (Twitter links). Qualls suffered an undisclosed injury during the workout, Coro relays, and was replaced by Polish guard Mateusz Ponitka.
The Kings have added John Welch and Chad Iske as assistants on George Karl‘s coaching staff, Spears reports (on Twitter). Both men were previously with Karl when he coached in Denver, Spears adds.

Pacific Notes: Lakers, Divac, Draft, Warriors

May 21st, 2015 at 12:01pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Lakers will look at D’Angelo Russell for the No. 2 overall pick, but preliminary indications are that they’ll take either Jahlil Okafor and Karl-Anthony Towns, depending on which one of those two is left after the Timberwolves pick, as Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times hears. Trading the pick is also an option, GM Mitch Kupchak says, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News tweets. In any case, the choices at No. 2 are a bit better than the Lakers would have had if the lottery had gone according to form and the team had ended up with the fourth pick. Here’s more from around the Pacific Division:

Kings president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac said his team should be open to trading its draft pick, but in comments that Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee relays, he distanced himself from the mechanics of any such move. “I’m leaving that to my basketball people,” Divac said. It’s an odd statement from the team’s top basketball executive. In any case, Chad Ford of ESPN.com identified the Kings, who pick sixth, among the teams most likely to trade their top-10 pick, along with the Magic, Pistons, Heat and Hornets, as Ford wrote in a chat with readers.
The Kings and the Pacers are the teams with the most interest in Willie Cauley-Stein, Ford adds in the same piece.
Andrew Bogut is a fan of the way Steve Kerr handles his assistant coaches, as the big man tells Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group a year after assistant coaches were squarely in the spotlight for Golden State. The departures of assistants Brian Scalabrine and Darren Erman from the Warriors bench last year were symbolic of the tumult near the end of Mark Jackson‘s time as Warriors coach. “In their own way, they all have free reign,” Bogut said of Kerr’s staff. “You see them talk to the media, which is something that wasn’t happening with us the last couple of years. There’s no agendas where a coach thinks, ‘Oh, he’s doing extra workouts with this guy, he’s trying to take my job, or vice-versa, or he’s trying to get himself a head-coaching job.’ We don’t have any of that. We have guys that say something when they need to say something and to be professional throughout.”

Latest On Kings Front Office

April 8th, 2015 at 11:19am CST by Chuck Myron

Kings owner Vivek Ranadive indeed sees vice president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac as the team’s primary basketball decision-maker instead of GM Pete D’Alessandro, league sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com. The team put Divac above D’Alessandro on its organizational chart when it hired its former center in March, though it wasn’t immediately clear whether Divac would be at the controls. D’Alessandro’s future with the club is unclear, as Stein and Grantland’s Zach Lowe (Twitter link) write. Sacramento is looking to hire another front office executive to support Divac whether or not D’Alessandro remains with the Kings, Stein hears.

Former Kings adviser Chris Mullin, who left the team a week ago to coach at St. John’s, his alma mater, was D’Alessandro’s closest ally, according to Stein. Mullin lost influence with Ranadive when he refused to coach the team immediately after the midseason firing of Michael Malone rather than wait until next season, sources tell the ESPN scribe. Mullin and D’Alessandro resisted the hiring of Divac, though D’Alessandro said last month that he and others were pleased to have Divac aboard, as Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee reported then.

Ranadive’s appointment of Divac atop the basketball power structure means the owner has once more hired a top hoops executive after hiring a coach, since George Karl joined the team in February, though Divac has made it clear that he likes Karl, Stein notes. Divac worked in the Lakers scouting department after his retirement in 2005, and he served as president of Serbia’s Partizan Belgrade and as an adviser to Spain’s Real Madrid, as Stein points out. He’s also done Olympic and FIBA administrative work and has a reputation as a unifying force, according to Stein. That jibes with a recent report from The Bee’s Jason Jones that Ranadive has wanted to end the discord that’s marked the front office of late. Ranadive had lost faith in the front office’s plan, Jones tweets.

D’Alessandro came aboard shortly after Ranadive bought the team in 2013. The GM had been former Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri‘s chief aide, and Denver was reportedly leaning toward hiring D’Alessandro for its own GM vacancy in 2013, when Ujiri left to head the Raptors. D’Alessandro’s tenure in charge of Sacramento’s basketball operations was marked by an aggressive posture toward trades, particularly in his first season, when the team acquired Rudy Gay from Ujiri and the Raptors. The Kings under D’Alessandro pushed Gay to opt in for this season and signed him to an extension this past fall, and they gave DeMarcus Cousins a max extension the previous offseason.

Pacific Rumors: Robinson, Kings, Bhullar

March 30th, 2015 at 6:45pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Nate Robinson‘s sore left knee is improving and he could return to the Clippers since coach Doc Rivers was pleased with what he saw from him, according to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). Robinson was not signed for the remainder of the season after his two 10-day contracts expired because of the injury but he’s expected to be cleared to play by week’s end, Marc Spears of Yahoo! Sports tweets. Rivers indicated to Bolch that Robinson’s return was a strong possibility when he’s ready to play. “I liked what Nate brought us,” Rivers said “I liked his energy.” However, Robinson’s return could be delayed until Lester Hudson‘s 10-day contract expires. Hudson was signed on Sunday to take the roster spot vacated by Robinson, whose last 10-day contract expired on Thursday. The 30-year-old Hudson was the Chinese Basketball Association MVP the last two years before joining the Clippers.

In other news around the Pacific Division:

Kings owner Vivek Ranadive wants to put an end to the discord in the team’s front office, league sources tell Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. Jones writes about Chris Mullin, the Kings adviser who is reportedly expected to accept an offer to instead become the coach at St. John’s University and who, according to fellow Bee scribe Ailene Voisin, opposed the hirings of coach George Karl and new Kings exec Vlade Divac.
The Kings are also hopeful Sim Bhullar will eventually make their NBA roster as his conditioning improves, Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee reports. Bhullar, a 7-foot-5, center, has been playing for the Kings’ D-League affiliate, the Reno Bighorns, after getting waived by Sacramento during training camp. Bhullar came to camp at nearly 400 pounds and has since shed approximately 45 pounds, according to Voisin. Ranadive is intrigued by Bhullar’s skill set but feels Bhullar still needs to drop another 40-50 pounds, Voisin adds. “He needs to get in much better shape,” Ranadive told Voisin. “That will help him get up and down the floor, and he’s been working on that.”