It’s not a surprise that the Sacramento Kings traded DeMarcus Cousins on Sunday night. What is surprising is how suddenly everything went down – it went from “he’s not going anywhere” for the last few days to “well, there is some smoke” on Sunday afternoon to “he’s a Pelican” on Sunday night.
Everyone wants to know why. According to Ric Bucher, there was no specific reason, but an accumulation of things that led to the move, including an incident involving Cousins and a few Golden State fans.
Source: no one act moved Kings to deal Cousins, but yelling "F*** Golden State" at fans after Feb 5 win over GS was a factor. That, & 17 Ts.
— Ric Bucher (@RicBucher) February 21, 2017
The game in question was a hotly contested one in Sacramento which the Kings won, 109-106. Cousins had a monster night, scoring 32 points, pulling down 12 rebounds, and dishing out eight assists in the victory. After the game, Cousins was walking to the locker room when he flipped off some Warriors fans and said “f*ck Golden State.”
One rumbling that Adrian Wojnarowski observed was that Sacramento wanted to “build a culture free” of its now-former center. This seemed like a pretty obvious sign that Cousins’ attitude played a big role in the decision to move him, which Bucher ended up confirming. Cousins came under criticism a lot for his attitude during game, namely his propensity for picking up technical fouls.
It remains to be seen whether that will still be the case in New Orleans, but if these reports are correct, they played a role in the trade that sent him there.
