DeMarcus Cousins Watch, 2021-22 season (was: Boogie to the Bucks!)

I think even Cousins fans can agree that him calling himself the greatest King ever is some straight nonsense. But, as far as the Sacramento era, he's Top 10 and, in terms of the players drafted by the team, he's Top 3, and he ain't three: I'll give the devil his due, even though I hate him, and acknowledge Stojakovic as the greatest player ever drafted by the Sacramento Kings.
You hate Peja? Why?
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
I don't even live anywhere near Sacramento. I just can identify a loser when I spot one. I don't know the man so I can't speak about him as a person outside of basketball, everything I gathered from his on-court antics.

I don't know if "righteousness" had anything to do with it. Sacramento Kings had been one of the worst NBA teams in the league for over a decade and it's one of the worst places any rookies could have for their NBA introduction. But after that, top talents no doubt, it's the fact that he never learned how to deal with the world on a human level that's been stopping him from success.

The intention is always golden, the obstacle is you.
All I know is, there are a whole lot of people who, at no point in their lives, ever have been or ever will be as good at what they do for a living as DeMarcus Cousins once was at what he does for a living, who are comfortable calling him a loser.

If you want to call an athlete a loser, that's fine; I get that it's a sports thing, I do it myself, sometimes. If you're willing to call an athlete a loser, but you're not willing to admit that you're a hater, I can't respect you.
 
All I know is, there are a whole lot of people who, at no point in their lives, ever have been or ever will be as good at what they do for a living as DeMarcus Cousins once was at what he does for a living, who are comfortable calling him a loser.

If you want to call an athlete a loser, that's fine; I get that it's a sports thing, I do it myself, sometimes. If you're willing to call an athlete a loser, but you're not willing to admit that you're a hater, I can't respect you.
Not sure I follow all your connotations concerning "have you been doing something as well as he had". Do you think someone needs to be "Michael Jordan good" to be qualified to criticize someone with "loser" mentality?

Just because he was once a Hall of Fame talent, that doesn't mean those who criticize him must be haters for calling out his loser tendencies, especially since he failed to surmount to his Hall of Fame talent due to his loser tendencies.

"If you want to call an athlete a loser, that's fine; I get that it's a sports thing"
Again, not sure why they are connected. Just because someone is an athlete, does that now suddenly make them immune to being a loser? I'm not even trying to fight you on "being a hater", I'm simply trying to understand your logic behind that before I admit to being such a thing.

All I'm witnessing and calling out is a once-in-a-lifetime HoF talent who is never willing to grow up and accept the world's order, has a serious issue with authority figures, and never accepts responsibility to deal with it (even when Sacramento offered to support him, he rejected such offer, according to Mr. Jerry Reynold). And now he's an old broken-down backup level athlete who teams are willing to sign but never willing to keep for long, and in some cases, even happier when he leaves.

And just for that, I must admit to be a "hater" before this whole point I'm making can be "respected"? That's where I am looking for the logic in.
 
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Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
I will always have a soft spot for Boogie. And I appreciate his willingness to speak his mind about his time in Sacramento. But I do hate that it just creates endless online fodder for the not-so-subtly-coded "DeMarcus is a thug" crowd. :rolleyes:
On the other hand, Grayson Allen is a kind, upstanding citizen who most certainly doesn't try to actually injure people on the basketball court. He's a competitor!!!
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
I will always have a soft spot for Boogie. And I appreciate his willingness to speak his mind about his time in Sacramento. But I do hate that it just creates endless online fodder for the not-so-subtly-coded "DeMarcus is a thug" crowd. :rolleyes:
On the other hand, Grayson Allen is a kind, upstanding citizen who most certainly doesn't try to actually injure people on the basketball court. He's a competitor!!!
Look...no.

Number one, since when has Grayson Allen been viewed as "a competitor"? He's been viewed as a dirty player since early in his Duke years.

Number two, I don't know how anybody gets the idea that it's OK to subtly imply a racist motive to somebody who criticizes a particular player who has the exact same racial makeup as a good majority of the rest of the players in a league that criticizer is a fan of. It's entirely possible for people to criticize Cousins for Cousins' actions without a racist motive, it's completely unfair to level that accusation at others, and it's not going to be done here. End of story.
 
Look...no.

Number one, since when has Grayson Allen been viewed as "a competitor"? He's been viewed as a dirty player since early in his Duke years.

Number two, I don't know how anybody gets the idea that it's OK to subtly imply a racist motive to somebody who criticizes a particular player who has the exact same racial makeup as a good majority of the rest of the players in a league that criticizer is a fan of. It's entirely possible for people to criticize Cousins for Cousins' actions without a racist motive, it's completely unfair to level that accusation at others, and it's not going to be done here. End of story.
Thank you.
 
Grayson Allen is also a thug. None of these players care if they injure their fellow players on the court in order to get to their own success which is just simply unacceptable. All of them.
This is simply untrue. Most competitive people want to prove they are the best. The best don't feel the need to injure others in order to do so.
 
Not sure I follow all your connotations concerning "have you been doing something as well as he had". Do you think someone needs to be "Michael Jordan good" to be qualified to criticize someone with "loser" mentality?

Just because he was once a Hall of Fame talent, that doesn't mean those who criticize him must be haters for calling out his loser tendencies, especially since he failed to surmount to his Hall of Fame talent due to his loser tendencies.

"If you want to call an athlete a loser, that's fine; I get that it's a sports thing"
Again, not sure why they are connected. Just because someone is an athlete, does that now suddenly make them immune to being a loser? I'm not even trying to fight you on "being a hater", I'm simply trying to understand your logic behind that before I admit to being such a thing.

All I'm witnessing and calling out is a once-in-a-lifetime HoF talent who is never willing to grow up and accept the world's order, has a serious issue with authority figures, and never accepts responsibility to deal with it (even when Sacramento offered to support him, he rejected such offer, according to Mr. Jerry Reynold). And now he's an old broken-down backup level athlete who teams are willing to sign but never willing to keep for long, and in some cases, even happier when he leaves.

And just for that, I must admit to be a "hater" before this whole point I'm making can be "respected"? That's where I am looking for the logic in.
I think this is a bit much, because Boogie has never gotten into any trouble off the court, has taken care of his family, looked out for his business folks, and has his priorities straight by investing in his career.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
Grayson Allen is also a thug. None of these players care if they injure their fellow players on the court in order to get to their own success which is just simply unacceptable. All of them.
Let me put it this way then. When has Boogie ever tried to deliberately injure an opponent? If anything, he was always the guy getting punched in the balls for some reason.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
But get this. He yelled at some refs and kicked a garbage can over one time.
There was that time he yelled at that weird Bee reporter or when he tried to fight Donte Greene in the locker room too.
I don’t think anyone is saying Boogie handled a lot of things particularly well but Boogie antics probably aren’t even cracking a Top Ten list of reasons we didn’t win when he was here.
 
Outside of the glory years (in which no Kings player represented Team USA in the Olympics, Webb was probably snubbed in 2000 and Bibby got a 2003 FIBA Gold) one of my proudest Kings fans moments was Cousins on Team USA and winning gold. What a loser.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
There was that time he yelled at that weird Bee reporter or when he tried to fight Donte Greene in the locker room too.
I don’t think anyone is saying Boogie handled a lot of things particularly well but Boogie antics probably aren’t even cracking a Top Ten list of reasons we didn’t win when he was here.
I think this is 100% true. But at the same time, Boogie's antics were definitely top-10 among things causing Angst and Sacramento Narrative, and while that's unfortunate and maybe stupid, it's also hard to discount. On the same topic, I don't think BagleyDad's antics were near a top-10 actual problem during the Bagley era, but there were quite a few people here that were quite concerned about that - even some of the people that think CousinsAntics issues are dumb totally thought BagleyDad issues were legit. We can wish it weren't so, but that kind of stuff does affect the fanbase even if the product on the court is pretty immune from it.
 
There was that time he yelled at that weird Bee reporter or when he tried to fight Donte Greene in the locker room too.
I don’t think anyone is saying Boogie handled a lot of things particularly well but Boogie antics probably aren’t even cracking a Top Ten list of reasons we didn’t win when he was here.
His antics were absolutely among the top reasons we didn't win in his time here b/c he couldn't get out of his own way. The kid was pure talent but dumb as a box of rocks on the court.
 
His antics were absolutely among the top reasons we didn't win in his time here b/c he couldn't get out of his own way. The kid was pure talent but dumb as a box of rocks on the court.
Probably my biggest beef with the guy...

Played out of his darn mind for about 40 minutes. Kept the Kings right in the mix of things to be able to pull it out down the stretch. And then runs up (or down) the court to argue some stupid call that did not go his way (or non-call for that matter). Receives an unnecessary technical as a result. And then crumbles under pressure to finish the game off.

Great player? Absolutely.
Smart player? Not really.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
His antics were absolutely among the top reasons we didn't win in his time here b/c he couldn't get out of his own way. The kid was pure talent but dumb as a box of rocks on the court.
One set of owners trying to move the team to whatever city would offer them the most debt relief and the other set of owners firing the one good coach this team has had since Adelman and replacing him with a clown car of mediocrity might have had more to do with it but to each their own.
 
I think this is 100% true. But at the same time, Boogie's antics were definitely top-10 among things causing Angst and Sacramento Narrative, and while that's unfortunate and maybe stupid, it's also hard to discount. On the same topic, I don't think BagleyDad's antics were near a top-10 actual problem during the Bagley era, but there were quite a few people here that were quite concerned about that - even some of the people that think CousinsAntics issues are dumb totally thought BagleyDad issues were legit. We can wish it weren't so, but that kind of stuff does affect the fanbase even if the product on the court is pretty immune from it.
I'm sorry Capt. but your overall #2 draft pick's dad publicly demanding a trade or challenging the coach on social (did not help that Joerger seemed to take it personally and even not shy away from his disapproval of the pick) was absolutely a major issue if not top 2 top 5 of the Bagley era.

We can agree to disagree but I am not going to allow that to pass without comment. :)
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
I'm sorry Capt. but your overall #2 draft pick's dad publicly demanding a trade or challenging the coach on social (did not help that Joerger seemed to take it personally and even not shy away from his disapproval of the pick) was absolutely a major issue if not top 2 top 5 of the Bagley era.

We can agree to disagree but I am not going to allow that to pass without comment. :)
At least Boogie didn’t have his agent put out a press release complaining about playing time on opening night of a season.
 
I will say that Boogie's inability to control his emotions has hindered him throughout his career. I don't think it hurt the team immeasurably, but it absolutely did not help our perception with the refs. I feel like Kings were already not treated well by the refs so I don't know how you can throw this all on Cousins (hell even my kid born in 08 started watching 02 WCF on his own and asked me why Bibby didn't get calls vs. the Lakers, mentioned Kobe's elbow, not with prompting from me).

Obviously though, all those techs and perhaps creating a perception with the refs that he was a bad guy did no favors and probably cost us a few games here and there, but also we were never in a real playoff chase so how much ultimate harm we'll never say.
 
Eh, Cousins was a very savvy player on the court when focused. He was too easily distracted by his emotions; (Chris Paul owned Boogie's soul, and would manipulate him for fun.)

But hey, I don't think Demarcus' emotions lost us very many games (it probably would have mattered more if we made it to the playoffs, his career playoff record is pretty bad). The key issue there was never having enough talent in Cousins' teammates (I primarily blame the Maloofs and the relocation saga). And Cousins wasn't the guy you build around as a leader when you're starting over from scratch. He was best in the supporting role next to A.D.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
Eh, Cousins was a very savvy player on the court when focused. He was too easily distracted by his emotions; (Chris Paul owned Boogie's soul, and would manipulate him for fun.)

But hey, I don't think Demarcus' emotions lost us very many games (it probably would have mattered more if we made it to the playoffs, his career playoff record is pretty bad). The key issue there was never having enough talent in Cousins' teammates (I primarily blame the Maloofs and the relocation saga). And Cousins wasn't the guy you build around as a leader when you're starting over from scratch. He was best in the supporting role next to A.D.
Yeah, I think if there’s one thing you can definitely fault Geoff Petrie on in his later years, it was his steadfast refusal to bring in a veteran leader of any kind aside from Chuck Hayes, who was both out of shape and sorta useless in his stint with us. Boogie, Tyreke, and IT were the start of a good core to build around but neither of them was necessarily a “rally the troops” sort of guy. Teams can overcome this when they have strong coaching (see: the Denver Nuggets) but the Kings fired the only coach capable of doing this to eventually replace him with a burnt out George Karl.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
I'm sorry Capt. but your overall #2 draft pick's dad publicly demanding a trade or challenging the coach on social (did not help that Joerger seemed to take it personally and even not shy away from his disapproval of the pick) was absolutely a major issue if not top 2 top 5 of the Bagley era.

We can agree to disagree but I am not going to allow that to pass without comment. :)
I'm fine with disagreeing, but I'm not sure whether you took that in the way I intended. As with BoogieAntics, I'd say the BagleyDad stuff definitely was a top-ten and maybe even top-two thing causing Angst and Sacramento Narrative. But if I'm going to sign on to Tetsujin's argument that BoogieAntics weren't a top-ten reason the Kings weren't winners during his tenure (and I'm happy to do that), then I have a hard time not including BagleyDad stuff in the same category. Unless you really believe that the BagleyDad stuff affected the product on the floor, then the BoogieAntics probably look more significant, because for short periods, for 1 or 2 or 5 points, they did affect the game, in-game. I tend to believe that the players are able to tune the BagleyDad drama out during the game. Hey, maybe they can't, and maybe they affected Bagley more than anybody. But was Bagley actually ready to contribute anyway? If Bagley's dad was exactly like Dr. Holmes, would we have won any more games? I don't see much reason to believe that.
 
I'm fine with disagreeing, but I'm not sure whether you took that in the way I intended. As with BoogieAntics, I'd say the BagleyDad stuff definitely was a top-ten and maybe even top-two thing causing Angst and Sacramento Narrative. But if I'm going to sign on to Tetsujin's argument that BoogieAntics weren't a top-ten reason the Kings weren't winners during his tenure (and I'm happy to do that), then I have a hard time not including BagleyDad stuff in the same category. Unless you really believe that the BagleyDad stuff affected the product on the floor, then the BoogieAntics probably look more significant, because for short periods, for 1 or 2 or 5 points, they did affect the game, in-game. I tend to believe that the players are able to tune the BagleyDad drama out during the game. Hey, maybe they can't, and maybe they affected Bagley more than anybody. But was Bagley actually ready to contribute anyway? If Bagley's dad was exactly like Dr. Holmes, would we have won any more games? I don't see much reason to believe that.
We were so close in 2018-2019. I know there are a hundred reasons it went sideways and they aren't all Bagley's fault. I don't know what ultimately happened so that Luke wouldn't even play him. I guess I want to believe that we could have won with that team because it almost happened. So many people at fault though.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
Not sure I follow all your connotations concerning "have you been doing something as well as he had". Do you think someone needs to be "Michael Jordan good" to be qualified to criticize someone with "loser" mentality?
What I think is that "Michael Jordan good" is moving the goalposts to a ridiculous degree, and borders on creating a strawman. What I'm saying is that you don't get to where Cousins was as a basketball player, at his peak, if you have a "loser mentality." There are a bunch of guys who come into the league with tons of talent, who don't develop into multiple-time All-Star, multiple-time All-NBA caliber players, and the ones who do are not the ones who have a "loser mentality." Players with a "loser mentality" also don't get invited to try out for USA Basketball, and then make the team for the FIBA World Championships, and then get invited back for the Olympics, two years later. Like, maybe he gets invited to try out, but no way does he make the team, twice, if people whose opinions matter think that he's a loser. And I think it's funny that people who aren't even good enough at what they do for a living to be called "the DeMarcus Cousins of..." whatever that is, to look at that guy and say with confidence that they know he's a loser,

Just because he was once a Hall of Fame talent, that doesn't mean those who criticize him must be haters for calling out his loser tendencies, especially since he failed to surmount to his Hall of Fame talent due to his loser tendencies.
Rationalizing why calling someone a loser isn't hating is Hating 101. That might even be the first day of class.

Again, not sure why they are connected. Just because someone is an athlete, does that now suddenly make them immune to being a loser? I'm not even trying to fight you on "being a hater", I'm simply trying to understand your logic behind that before I admit to being such a thing.
That was actually me trying to give you the benefit of the doubt: if you go around calling people losers in real life, I am inclined to believe that you are an a*****e. It's one of those things that is considered "acceptable" in the context of sports fandom, however, like booing, and I was allowing for such... But that doesn't mean that you're not hating.