Cousins, 26, was the fifth overall pick of the 2010 Draft. Washington’s John Wall, Utah’s Gordon Hayward, and Indiana’s Paul George were the only other players from that draft to make an All-Star game. In fact, Cousins is headed to his third straight game.
Currently, the Kings are 24-33, and 1 ½ games out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Remember when it was the Eastern Conference where the sub-.500 teams were either in--or just outside--of the playoff hunt?!
Cousins is fourth in the league in scoring (27.8 points per game). His 10.6 rebounds per game are 11th in the league. In fact, if you run down the stat leaders in Sacramento going into the break, “Boogie” leads the team in points, rebounds, assists (4.8 per game), blocks (78), steals (75), and minutes (34.4 per game). The one statistic you cannot ignore is his league-leading 19 technical fouls.
He had 17 all last season.
To put this in perspective, Houston’s Dwight Howard and the Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan are second with 14. That’s more than two full games worth of ejections worth of blowing your lid.
Earlier this week after picking up #17, Cousins told Matt Kawahara of the Sacramento Bee:
“It’s obvious I can’t be myself. Me playing how I want ot play is what makes me the player that I am. Obviously it’s not acceptable, so I’m trying to find a way to, you know, do what these guys are asking me to do. It’s not easy, but I’m trying to find a way.”
Is this the same type of play that ran George Karl out of Sacramento after just over a season? Karl was 44-68 at the helm of the Kings, and was supposed to turn Cousins into the best big man in the game. Cousins is starting to resemble more Rasheed Wallace than Hakeem Olajuwon.
The Kings opened the Golden 1 Center last season, and city officials are trying to put together a plan to host the 2019 All-Star Weekend. The game--if the bid is successful--would be the first for the capital of California. Portland, Memphis, and Oklahoma City are the only other cities to have never hosted the midseason pageantry. The Kings also changed their logo and uniforms for this season, going to more of a “modernized retro” look from when the team moved from Kansas City in 1985. Thankfully, the colors received a minor tweak, and not the Reggie Theus-era powder blue as the primary.
General Manager Vlade Divac publicly stated that Cousins would not be traded before next Saturday’s deadline. Not only is Divac not going to trade Cousins, he’s going to sign him to an extension after the Kings miss the playoffs for the 11th straight season. Cousins is expected to covet a maximum contract, and that could be in the range of 5-years, $200 million. He is still owed a shade over $18 million next year, the last of his current contract. Under the current deal, Cousins will account for more than 17-percent of the Kings’ salary, with forward Rudy Gay earning $14.2 million himself. Gay will be about 14-percent of the team’s salary. The salary cap is expected to rise from $94 million to $102 million for next season, which is much lower than the $108 million most were expecting when the new Collective Bargaining Agreement went into effect at the start of the season. The $108 million won’t be until the 2018-19 season.
There is another reason Divac cannot trade Cousins...his cupboard is bare. If Divac thinks he can build a team around a 30-year-old Gay, and a 29-year-old Darren Collison, the Kings may have been better off moving out of town. The Kings bent mayor Kevin Johnson over a barrell for years to get Arco Arena replaced, and the crown jewel of their new home is DeMarcus Cousins?!
The only royal aspect of this franchise is the pain in in the ass Cousins has turned into. Every few weeks there is a new rumor of how Cousins could be on the move at any time, or he did something stupid in a game that shows up on a highlight film for the wrong reason.
To put it mildly, Cousins was enabled by John Calipari at Kentucky. Since Calipari took over in Lexington, Wall, Cousins, Minnesota’s Karl Anthony-Towns, Philadelphia’s Nerlens Noel, and New Orleans’ Anthony Davis are just some of the most well-known names to jump to the NBA after one year of college. Wall can’t get along with Bradley Beale. Noel misses a month after sneezing, and isn’t even starting for one of the three-worst franchises in the league. KAT is playing alongside Andrew Wiggins, and the Timberwolves show no signs of getting out of the lottery any time soon. Davis is the lone exception. Calipari has publically stated in the past he has no issue with his players using Kentucky as their platform to the NBA, as they cannot jump straight from high school any longer.
Wow, with that sense of entitlement, you might think Cousins was playing football at a school three hours north of Lexington.
-JC24