Maybe none of you really followed him, or what went on in Sac last year. While they were trying to negotiate his rookie contract, he was such a crazy bas that there were rumors that they might actually renounce him. They got the contract signed, and then had to hire his high school coach as a babysitter, in the hope that he would at least have a little influence over him. (Maybe there have been other coaches who jumped straight from high school to being an assistant in the NBA, but I never heard about it.) One of the Kings' staff got into trouble for saying that the "kid has a screw loose" - but everyone else was thinking the same thing.
From the moment he arrived, he started making demands like he was LeBron. He ignored and insulted Paul Westphal, and the assistants, and was all but uncontrollable. He showed up for camp at almost 300 lbs., and pissed on the strength coach until the team finally fined him $5K, and threatened to suspend him for the first game of the season. He had screaming matches with coaches during practices, over their instructions. During the season, he started a fight with Donte Greene after a game that was so bad that he was refused a seat on the team plane afterward. Why? Because during the game, Greene inbounded the ball to another player, and Cousins thought he should have gotten it instead. That's a rookie... with one year of college ball under his belt.
This season he came into camp as the supposedly "new and improved" DeMarcus Cousins. All of that at ude was behind him, and he was going to be a good teammate and bring a championship to Sacramento. He couldn't even make it last two weeks - on the last day of camp he demanded to be traded. Seriously? Demanding a trade over something that happened in camp?
Of course, it shouldn't be any surprise that he's demanding a trade after one season in the league. After high school, he committed to one university. (Alabama?), then reneged. Then he signed a letter of intent with Memphis. Then reneged again, and went to Kentucky.
You guys can debate his talent all you want to. I think most people agree he's got skills. But there's no way he's coming to this team. Everyone knows about the time Latrell Sprewell choked P.J. Carlesimo. But the team didn't really publicize the time he got into a fight with Jerome Kersey, and came back to practice with a two by four, and threatened to bring a gun. (Or a bunch of other crazy-stupid .) Cousins is a lot like that. There's a lot more wrong with him than most people have read about on ESPN. And unless he gets his head fixed, he'll bring his teams just as many championships as Sprewell did. I don't think players all have to be do-gooders. But they can't be crazy-assed, distractive troublemakers all the time, either.
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