That's true, but I would not be the least bit surprised to find out that Cousins was agitating to get out either way and ownership goaded Karl to push him out the door.
I don't think it's fair to make those kind of assumptions.
I've been following Cousins for some time now, and I've never seen any LEGITIMATE media reports of him demanding trades, forcing teammates to get traded, forcing coaches to get fired, etc.
People make up this big image of him being this troublemaker who tries to cause problems with everybody, but he's spent about 4 seasons now playing for the most horrendously managed franchise in the NBA (and possibly in all of professional sports) yet to this point he has not once made a clear public attempt to force changes.
People are all over Cousins for being a 'team cancer' type guy, but when discussion moves to a guy like Kevin Love (who requested trades and FORCED his way out of Minny) everybody gets on the defensive and says stuff like "But he had bad teams and bad coaches and got tired of losing".
Well Cousins has had bad teams, even worse coaches, and an even worse franchise, and has lost just as much, but he's never done the dirty "force my way out" like Love did so I just don't get why he cops all the flak while guys like Love get off with a get out of jail free card.
Just because Cousins plays with an extreme passion on the court (which sometimes gets him in trouble with officials, etc) it's like people just take that to assume that he's a trouble maker who causes locker room problems.
How many times have team mates complained about Cousins (as Rubio subtly did about Love lacking leadership skills)? I've heard none.
How many times have you heard of Cousins getting fights with teammates (e.g. Lance Stephenson, Gilbert Arenas)?
i haven't heard of any, and if you hear the guy talk in an interview he actually sounds very humble and pretty intelligent (by NBA standards). Always freely admits that he's a passionate guy and sometimes his passion gets the better of him and admits that this is one of his weaknesses as a player.
I love his personality and his attitude. The guy has heart - he's not a sissy attention seeking mommas boy like Lebron, who runs around looking for media attention an telling the world how great he is.