DeMarcus Cousins Gets A Technical In A Playground Game

Um…yeah. Give DeMarcus Cousins credit for balling on a holiday weekend (I guess), but apparently, perhaps Sacramento’s biggest hope, and problem, picked up a technical in a game in Washington, D.C.’s Goodman league. According to the Afro, Cousins, who still had 29 points, was called for traveling and lost it, throwing the ball completely out of the gym.

Zach Lowe at SI.com writes:

I reached out this morning to league officials, via Twitter and their website, and a couple of folks who have covered the league regularly, to see how common technicals are at Goodman. I’ve never attended a game personally, so far all I know, players throw tantrums all the time and earn a pile of technicals. I haven’t yet heard back from those folks. Several NBA players, including Kevin Durant and John Wall, pop in and out of the league each summer, and I can’t find any reports of them getting T’d up.

This comes after a season in which Cousins finished fifth in the league in technicals, got punished several times for yelling at Sacramento’s coaches; flashed the “choke” sign at Golden State’s Reggie Williams (a move that looked quite silly when the Warriors rallied for an improbable win), and got into a violent altercation with Donte Greene after Greene had the gall to pass to Tyreke Evans instead of Cousins on a potential game-tying possession against the Thunder.

And these are just the incidents have been made public.

As Lowe writes, this may not be the first time this has ever happened at Goodman. But you know what? I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a technical called in any type of summer league/streetball game I’ve played in or even watched. And that includes high school, when we used to have brush ups with different schools on an almost weekly basis (at one point, there was even a bench-clearing altercation and I don’t think anyone bothered to call a T as it got cleaned up pretty quick).

While Cousins was the entertainment, John Wall was the show, going off for 41 points in his Goodman league debut. Apparently, his jumper is much improved. While Wall’s former college teammate doesn’t seem to be maturing at the same rate, I hesitate to jump all over him (despite his history) because, look, somebody gets emotional and crazy in a summer league game? It’s not like I’ve never seen that before.

What do you think?

Follow Sean on Twitter at @SEANesweeney.

Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.

Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.

×