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As the NBA gets ready for the 2016-17 season, the Sacramento Kings generate perhaps the biggest interest - but not exactly for playing reasons.

The Kings are perhaps set to lose Rudy Gay, who is a month or so short of completing three years with the Kings and also DeMarcus Cousins, a six-season veteran. Of the two, trading the 26-year-old Cousins will perhaps be an extremely difficult decision for Vlade Divac, a former basketball player and currently the vice-president of basketball operations and general manager of the Kings. 

Thirty-year-old Gay confirmed last week the reports about him wanting to pull out of the final year of his contract and becoming a free agent, said this report. The man also thinks he is unlikely to negotiate a new deal to come back to the Kings' fold. Gay is even okay with a trade, which clears the picture to a great extent.

Gay's recent remark comprising words like having "no choice", "work" for the Kings and "act" to be with his team all season, as has been reported by ESPN.com, also spoke enough about the circumstances. For the Kings, however, the life after Gay might not be entirely disappointing as they have something of a nucleus to rebuild the team.

Now, back to Cousins.

The man has seen the sixth coach ever since he joined the Kings in 2011 (that itself speaks about the story) besides scores of teammates joining the camp and leaving. Now, with Cousins himself approaching the penultimate season of the contract (the concluding season has been incredibly ordinary), how does the management deal with the situation?

It might be better for the Kings to bid him goodbye now for he may refuse to either extend his contract next year or disrupt an initiative to trade him even if the move potentially has a huge return. It is though not the best move to trade a player who is finishing a season with an average of 26.9 points, 11.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game but the Kings would face an even bigger loss by getting nothing in return after trading a valuable player like Cousins.