DeMarcus Cousins: Why Kings Management Is Wrong to Reinstate Pouty Big Man
The Sacramento Kings have made a foolish mistake to reinstate sophomore forward DeMarcus Cousins after the team told him to not come to the arena for Sunday's home game against the New Orleans Hornets.
Head coach Paul Westphal said Sunday in a statement found on the Kings' official Web site said that Cousins demanded a trade, but his agent said that did not happen.
The Kings coach also said the following in his statement:
""When a player continually, aggressively, lets it be known that he is unwilling, unable to embrace traveling in the same direction as his team, it cannot be ignored indefinitely," head coach Paul Westphal said.
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So the Kings are going to let him come back to the team when he has problems like the ones stated in the above quote? Wow, that's pathetic management and it will only lead to more problems.
The Kings are going on a two-game road trip Tuesday against Memphis and then at Denver the next night. They will host the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday in the final game of a tiring back-to-back-to-back stretch. Without Cousins, who is by far the Kings' best frontcourt player, they could lose all three of those games.
To a team like the Kings who don't need to worry about winning and losing over developing talent, this is a mistake. If it takes Cousins missing a few games to learn a lesson and mature, so be it, even if the Kings lose all three of those games.
Cousins, who had a poor rookie season last year after being selected fifth overall in the 2010 NBA draft, has absolutely no business even thinking about demanding a trade or complaining.
His antics were not only disrespectful to Westphal, but to the entire organization. The Kings should suspend Cousins for a few games so he can learn that as a young player he hasn't earned the right to speak up against people who know the game much more than he does, such as Westphal.
This is not how you set an example for how young players will be dealt with. What is going to stop another young player on the Kings from acting in a disrespectful manner like Cousins did?
Unfortunately for the Kings, having a player with Cousins' maturity issues requires strong coaching and leadership from veteran players. Sacramento has neither of those, and the lack of any respected veterans is the real issue.
I don't feel bad for the Kings though, they knew that Cousins had maturity issues as a freshman at Kentucky yet they drafted him anyway.
To be fair to Cousins, the Kings are a bad team and I'm sure it's frustrating to play on a club that struggles on a consistent basis, but that's no excuse to act the way he did.
The Kings needed to make Cousins learn a lesson and teach him how to act like a professional, but it seems like they are unwilling to make this happen.
Cousins is an incredibly gifted player, but he doesn't have the right head on his shoulders. Complaining in your second year is wrong, and it's up to the Kings to help him mature.
Nicholas Goss is an NBA Featured Columnist, follow him on Twitter.
