John Calipari shoots down Kings rumors, says he'll stay at Kentucky

ByABC News
June 30, 2015, 12:41 PM

— -- 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.

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.

Calipari also tweeted that Ranadive never offered him a job:

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.