DeMarcus Cousins is the third-year center for the Sacramento Kings, and probably the only player that anyone can name on the Kings’ roster. DMC is a very talented player, however, the only reason anybody knows who he is is because he has a physical problem. As in, he physically cannot keep himself from acting like a child. He is gifted with an amazing set of skills. He is a great passer and a true center in the league that is seeing more and more big Power Forwards play the position. He is a true asset to the Kings, or rather, he would be, if he could get his head on straight.
Young athletes are incredibly dumb. Like, next level stupid. The reason behind this is that all young people are basically idiots. Granted, I’m not exactly old, but I’m half a decade removed from being DeMarcus Cousins’ age. At 22, I was living with three other guys and doing nothing of real value to the world (unless you count being the Beer Board Champion, complete with Natty Ice can championship belt). I was pretty much a man baby who couldn’t see, or cared to see three feet in front of his own face and I didn’t take two seconds to think through the consequences of my actions. This is true of all 22 year olds, whether or not they are millionaires playing in front of thousands of people every night, with people buying their jerseys or some college graduate stuck in a state of arrested development in Isla Vista, CA. While DeMarcus Cousins probably won’t grow up because the economy tanks and he loses his job, he will eventually. His career depends on whether or not he does it sooner or later.
Now, I realize it seems like I am defending DMC’s actions. I’m not. You don’t call referees “effing females,” for SO MANY different reasons. You don’t chase down sports announcers after the game. You don’t cuss out your coach at halftime. These are simply things you do not do. Why do you not do them? Because they are the actions of a moron, and they have consequences. The only problem is that Cousins’ actions do not have consequences. He has spent his professional career under Paul Westphal and Keith Smart. Granted, Keith Smart has a reputation for doing anything he can to help his players, and in theory, this should have been helpful to Cousins and his problems. However, Westphal and Smart have the combined forcefulness and authority of a third grade little league coach. Had Cousins been under coaches like Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich or Pat Riley, he would have figured out really quickly that his antics don’t fly. Smart attempted to bench Cousins, sending him home on an indefinite suspension, until the Maloofs informed him that he was not allowed to do that. Probably because DMC puts butts in seats, and Maloofs couldn’t trade him for two piles of cash.
Questions abound about what can be done about Cousins. Some are even questioning whether he will have a future in this league; they think he may head case his way out without another team giving him a second chance. Of course, this is an absurd proposition as current NBA All-Star Zach Randolph was essentially DeMarcus Cousins earlier in his career. Cousins is a beast, but his future with the Kings is in doubt.
With the pending sale to either the Mastrov/Burkle group or the Ballmer/Hansen group, one of the prime questions going forward is what to do with the dumpster fire the Maloofs have constructed to keep them above the salary floor. The Kings roster is currently the NBA equivalent of the corner of the sock drawer reserved for those socks that came out of the wash mismatched. Nobody really wants to throw them away, but they can’t really go together. A question on SactownRoyalty.com was “who do the Kings keep?” The biggest question, in my mind, is whether or not to build around DeMarcus Cousins. There are two clear scenarios, and as The Clash put it:
Should [DeMarcus] stay or should he go? Let’s explore both options here.
Cousins Stays!
The new ownership, new GM and new coach (let’s be honest, Smart and Petrie are both gone next year) sit down and decide that DeMarcus Cousins is going to be the cornerstone of the franchise going forward. Any NBA fan, GM or coach can tell you that if you could choose one generic piece to build around, it would be a young, talented center. This is precisely describes Cousins. The question becomes, what gets put around Cousins? First off, the team needs to figure out a way to bring in a headstrong, no non-sense coach. One who sits down Cousins and tells him that his actions have consequences and that he is The Man, but that he could get shipped out at any time. This is key to DMC’s development and maturation going forward. He has true 20-10 potential, with great passing and very good defense. If DeMarcus Cousins was in a video game, he would be perfect, if only because you could tape over the “fly off the handle like a child” button on the controller. They need a coach to tap into that potential and mitigate the damage Cousins is causing with his behavior. Think Harbaugh and Alex Smith, except instead of mitigating interceptions and bad ideas, he mitigates absurd behavior.
The team must then turn to what pieces to put around Cousins. Sacramento has several young and talented parts, including Tyreke Evans, Marcus Thornton, Isaiah Thomas, Jason Thompson and Thomas Robinson Patrick Patterson. These are all players who have a lot of talent and potential, but thanks to Keith Smart’s decisions, that are, well… let’s say, the opposite of his name, they aren’t getting the chance to flourish. In an interview this week, recently traded former King Thomas Robinson said as much. The Kings don’t know when they will play next, thanks to Smart’s screwy rotations. I witnessed these idiocies first hand at Oracle Arena on Wednesday. The Kings’ best players that night were Jason Thompson and Isaiah Thomas, and they spent most of the game on the bench. This tells me that the core of the roster isn’t really the problem, but the periphery is a real issue. Chuck Hayes is currently stealing approximately $6,000,000 a year from Sacramento, a carryover from the Maloof era, where they struggled to stay above the cap floor (including the time they traded a second rounder for the expiring contract of Mikki Moore, who was recovering from getting his back snapped in half, the height of Maloofian Economics). The best bet is to keep the players mentioned above, shed the excess, including amnestying Salmons or Hayes, and moving on with intelligent draft picks and actually paying free agents to come to Sacramento.
Cousins goes!
Let’s say the new group of ownership decides that Cousins isn’t worth the headaches and ship him out for, honestly, 75 cents on the dollar. Likely for an expiring contract and a conditional draft pick. Who becomes the center of the team? If this happens, there isn’t a true cornerstone franchise player on the roster. There are a bunch of great second or third options, including Evans, Thornton and Thomas. They would likely have to take that expiring contract and wait it out, trying to grab someone on the open market. This is something that hasn’t worked for Sacramento in the past (but better for Seattle, if I’m being fair). The new ownership group spends a few years in limbo, attempting to rebuild through the draft and attempting to entice free agents every year to a team without a true cornerstone player. Unfortunately the Kings/Sonics roster going forward will be good enough to get them a pick somewhere between 5 and 7 every year. They’re just bad, but not bad enough to get that franchise player through the draft.
Looking at these two options, it’s pretty clear that DMC’s antics aren’t the problem with the Kings. The problem is the junk status roster, including the coach, that Petrie and the Maloofs (mostly the Maloofs) have put together. The best answer to the DMC question is to find a coach who won’t put up with his nonsense. Then shed the garbage GM and ownership (in progress!) and move forward from there.
DeMarcus Cousins is being blamed for being young and stupid, probably because young people are inherently stupid. You can’t really be mad when the organization around him is doing nothing to stop his petulant behavior. The best thing for the Kings to do for DeMarcus Cousins is to get someone who won’t stand for that nonsense, and go from there. This is the best for Cousins, and the best for the organization, and the best bet going forward (whether it is going forward to Sacramento or Seattle).
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