Finally off emotional roller coaster, new chapters begin for Kings, Cousins
No matter what side of the DeMarcus Cousins debate you were on in Sacramento, there was always one indisputable reality about his six-plus season tenure with the Kings: It was exhausting.
From the day he stepped foot in California’s Capitol as a 19-year-old and started clashing with then-coach Paul Westphal to the rainy night when he held back tears and said goodbye to a room full of supporters inside a sushi restaurant just outside the city limits, the Cousins experience was always an emotional roller coaster.
Fans who loved him despite his mercurial ways were never truly rewarded. Cousins’ monstrous individual production always came amid abject failure and dysfunction (a 35.3 winning percentage in his time there, with one ownership change, five coaching changes, and two front-office overhauls). Those who grew tired of his act, who objected to the outbursts and the obstinence and the unhealthy way in which the Kings always seemed to give in to his domineering ways, would wonder aloud in their homes and on local sports talk radio about whether he could truly lead them back to prominence.
There was perhaps no better example of Cousins’ divisive powers than the reaction of two prominent radio personalities on the Sacramento sports station, KHTK. Grant Napear, the afternoon host who has been a traveling television announcer for the Kings since 1988, lambasted Cousins on Twitter in the days following the move and celebrated his departure. Meanwhile, fellow radio man Dave Weiglein, aka Carmichael Dave, wrote a 2,826-word column explaining his respect and admiration for the complicated Cousins.
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So with the Kings three games into life without Cousins, with that trade that sent him to the New Orleans Pelicans on Feb. 19 growing smaller by the day in the Kings’ rear view mirror, it came as no surprise that many of the main characters in his Sacramento story weren’t eager to relive this ride.
Westphal, who once revealed a Cousins trade demand by way of an official team statement just days before he was fired in early Jan. 2012, didn’t return a call for comment. Current Kings president of basketball operations Vlade Divac, who granted a detailed interview with The Sacramento Bee last weekend to explain the move and declared that “it was time to start over,” politely declined to discuss it all again.
What’s done is done, they all said in their own kind of way, no matter how badly the Kings were hammered by Cousins’ decimated market. They were fleeced, of course, in part because of the red flags surrounding Cousins and also because the scare tactics employed around the league by his agents worked (they were pushing for the five-year, $207 million extension this summer that only the Kings could provide, and it ultimately backfired on both sides). But no matter the haul – in this case Buddy Hield, Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway, a first- and second-round draft pick in 2017 – this was a basketball divorce a long time in the making.
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“I’m not sure about weighing in on this other than (to say) it’s probably best for both parties at this point,” former Kings basketball president Geoff Petrie, who drafted Cousins fifth overall out of Kentucky in 2010, told USA TODAY Sports via text message. “It’s a very layered landscape which won’t play out for a while. Bottom line: they both get to start over.”
Even those who are closest to Cousins are starting to see it that way.
Veteran guard Garrett Temple was as close to Cousins as anyone in the Kings locker room this season, yet the 30-year-old is more convinced by the day that this is for the best. They had bonded off the floor in ways that shouldn’t be forgotten, with Temple, Cousins, and the since-departed Matt Barnes once hosting a town hall to improve relations between the community and law enforcement. But this, Temple believes, is the beginning of a more fruitful chapter for Cousins and the Kings.
“I miss my boy; talked to him yesterday,” Temple told USA TODAY Sports recently. “But I’m at the point now where I kind of realize that in order for the organization to grow, it might have had to happen. I think in order for Cuz to grow (too); I think honestly it’s going to be a good thing.
“It’s a cliché, but change is good sometimes. DeMarcus was here, and there was so much inconsistency (within the organization), maybe going to a whole ‘nother team – even if he doesn’t stay in New Orleans – but going to a team and deciding where he wants to be, and trying to start over, would be good for him. But it’s an interesting situation. People feel different ways about it.”
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Temple’s only lament? That Cousins didn’t get to prove to the folks in Sacramento that he had changed.
For all the off-court issues this season, from the New York nightclub incident in early December to his blowup at Bee columnist Andy Furillo in mid-December to the middle fingers he gave to a Golden State Warriors fan after a Feb. 6 game in Sacramento, Temple pointed to a significant sign of progress that was wasted with the trade: Cousins was getting along with his coach, Dave Joerger.
“I think we were reaching him, and letting him know what he needed to do to become a winner, to become a leader,” Temple said. “I don’t know if he had that before, or what happened. But like I said, all the different inconsistencies may have hurt that, but that’s the only thing where you look back and you say, ‘I think I could have been a part of him changing into the person, the leader, the franchise player that brings this team to the fourth seed, or the third seed, in the Western Conference.
“But at the end of the day, on the GM side, (you’re) six and a half years in, he’s putting up monster numbers – his numbers can’t get any better, so what’s the deal? You’re winning 25, 30 games, so something has to give.”
They’ll likely lose even more now, of course, and the narrative is prone to flipping from one day to the next.
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When the Kings win without Cousins, like they did in their first game against Denver on Thursday, then his absence – that widespread feeling of not having to walk on eggshells all the time – will be freeing. When they lose, like they have in the two games since to Charlotte and Minnesota, then it will serve as a harsh reminder that his talents – like him or not – will be missed.
Yet truth be told, the Kings (25-35) are better off letting the losses pile up. They have a draft pick that they’ll lose to Chicago unless they land a top 10 pick, and a possible pick swap with Philadelphia to monitor as well (the Sixers, who get the better of their pick and the Kings’, are currently 22-37). What they don’t have is Cousins, and only time will tell if a top-tier talent will come to their small-market city again anytime soon.
“It’s a new day in Sac,” Kings officials told the team's minority owners internally on the day of the deal
To say the least.
“How long was (Cousins) here? Six years?” said Cousins' replacement, Kings second-year big man Willie Cauley-Stein, who had not attempted to reach out to his former teammate after his departure. “I mean six years and nothing has gotten better, or worse, per se. But when you’re switching coaches and switching people in the front office and your team is different every year, so I mean you’ve got to make some sort of change, even if it’s that drastic. You’ve been doing it for six years, and nothing has changed. You’ve got to change something and see if it shakes.”
Follow Sam Amick on Twitter @Sam_Amick