Kentucky coach John Calipari tweeted denials Tuesday of the latest rumors linking him to an NBA job, saying there's no substance to the notion that he would leave the college ranks for the Sacramento Kings.
For the 100th time, I have the best basketball coaching position in the world. I am not looking for any other coaching position.
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) June 30, 2015
Calipari acknowledged that he has had discussions with Kings owner Vivek Ranadive, but he said they were limited to the coach's thoughts on last week's NBA draft as well as about Kings forward DeMarcus Cousins, who played one season at Kentucky for Calipari.
.@Vivek has asked me what I thought about @boogiecousins and I told him he would be an all-star, and I was right.
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) June 30, 2015
Calipari also tweeted that Ranadive never offered him a job:
At no time has @Vivek offered me a job. I WILL BE AT KENTUCKY.
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) June 30, 2015
Meanwhile, Vlade Divac, the Kings' vice president of basketball and franchise operations, told ESPN's Marc Stein on Tuesday that a Yahoo! Sports report about Calipari's interest in coaching and running the Kings' front office is "absolutely not true." Said Divac: "The only person in our organization who [handles] something like this is me, and I've had zero conversations with John Calipari. We have a coach here."
Ranadive has considered firing current Kings coach George Karl because of the owner's displeasure over Karl's desire to trade Cousins, ESPN's Chris Broussard has reported in recent days.