Recent trade rumors have emerged that the Sacramento Kings are shopping Rudy Gay and Kosta Koufos this summer as the ballclub is keen on "fixing the team's culture" moving forward.
With main man DeMarcus Cousins having a ball of a time with Team USA in the ongoing Olympics in Rio, the Kings back home are trying to prepare an improved kingdom for their franchise center to return home to.
Basketball Insiders said that the Kings are "hoping they can make the kinds of chemistry changes to keep a good thing going", referring to Cousins' motivated demeanor while playing with the national team.
With that, Vlade Divac and company are rumored to be dangling two of their key players last season, Gay and Koufos, in an attempt to "clean up the locker room" with unmotivated veterans as to make new head coach Dave Joerger's job a lot easier in 2016-2017.
Many analysts believe that after Gay's recent tirades against the Kings, he will be shipped out of town by the time training camp starts this year.
There had been a couple of speculated trade partners, such as the Houston Rockets, who are said to be the "most interested" club to sign the small forward, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Clippers, and Miami Heat, but there are no official reports yet that an actual negotiation is in progress.
The 29-year-old former Connecticut standout is set to become an unrestricted free agent next summer and Sacramento will surely not allow Gay to walk away without getting some value out of him in return.
Meanwhile, the team is also trying to trade Koufos this summer as the 27-year-old Greek-American center is seen as an ill-fit to the "group of bigs the Kings have now", as per Sports Illustrated.
At the moment, aside from Cousins and Koufos, Sacramento has Willie Cauley-Stein, Omri Casspi, Georgios Papagiannis, and Skal Labissiere as their frontcourt options and team officials and coaching staff are rumored to be unconvinced that Koufos' style of play fits well with his other teammates.
The Kings are said to be planning to trade the former Ohio State standout to acquire a reliable backup point guard to spell starting playmaker Darren Collison, who slid back to his normal spot with the departure of Rajon Rondo to the Chicago Bulls.
