Melrose, Beverley Trade Shots

Nick Beverley, fired Wednesday as the Kings’ general manager, said Thursday that Coach Barry Melrose had repeatedly manipulated situations to avoid blame for the team’s poor performance and cast that blame on Beverley.

Melrose, who has been working for ESPN as an analyst on its playoff telecasts, said Wednesday that Beverley had opposed his suggestions to acquire bigger, stronger players to complement the team’s skill players.

“That’s the direction hockey is going. The four biggest teams are still playing,” Melrose said. “Nick and I didn’t agree over that, to be honest with you.”

Beverley disputed Melrose’s version of events, saying that Melrose was involved in all personnel decisions.

“Despite all the misinformation that continues to be bandied about on national TV, I know the truth, and that’s all that matters to me,” Beverley said. “You go back and research all the (newspaper) articles and you’ll see the same thing over and over and over again. He keeps saying, ‘We’ve got to get bigger, faster, stronger and younger.’ Since we supposedly were at odds and not on the same page, that means I wanted the team to get older, slower and weaker?

“How much of this has to get said before people get tweaked to where this guy’s coming from? It borders on the ludicrous, if I have to spend all this amount of time and energy helping people see the true aspects of this.”