I don't know if this has been posted yet, at least not as a thread starter, so here it is.
http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/11/29/demarcus-cousins-kicked-out-of-kings-practice/
I want to say this to NBA Fan. And this is just my personal opinion. You make blanket statements about players. In this case your condemming a 20 year old. To criticize him for his immature actions is certainly warranted. To condemn for life is either ourright ignorance, or you have an agenda. If you have an agenda, then crawl back under the rock you crawled out from. That leaves ignorance. And I'm being kind with that word. I could have use stupidity, which would mean your incapable of learning.
If every 20 year old was judged as harshly as your willing to judge Cousins, we'd have a lot more young people selling drugs on street corners, or in prison. Not only do you have to give young people the chance to improve, in many cases you have to help them. Help can come in many fashions. Disclipine is certainly one way. You don't reward bad behavior. But you don't throw them into the trash pile either. Which is what you want to do. Whether you like it or not, and this applies to anyone else of like mind as yours. The Kings have a lot of their future tied up in Cousins and Evans. And in many ways, the two are very similar. They may be polar opposites when it comes to personality, but their actions on the court aren't all that different. Both think they have to personally win the game. Both try to make it happen all by themselves. And both make mistakes as a result of that kind of thinking. Certainly Evans has been far more successful at this point. But the mentality of both players is very similar, even if the results aren't.
Both players are used to winning, contrary to what you might think. And also contrary to what you might think, Cousins was a huge part of Kentucky's success. You can argrue that Wall was the main cog of that team, but without a doubt, Cousins was the next go to guy on the team. He was the best per minute rebounder to come out of college in the last 10 years. There is one thing thats a given. You don't become a good rebounder by not giving effort. There are a lot of things that can come naturally in basketball where you can just skate by on talent. But rebounding takes effort and desire. I watched him play 24 times last year, (Yep, I'm getting tired of saying it, but hey, I've already watched Terrence Jones 5 times this year) and the only time I saw subpar effort from Cousins was when he ran out of gas. Which was perhaps too often. But it was something I knew could be remedied in the NBA.
I'm not excusing him. He needs to be straightened out and put on the right path. But I think there's a deeper problem on this team and Cousins is just the tip of the iceberg. Cousins is the only one thats immature enough to say, what perhaps others are thinking. What you have is a 20 year old rookie thats immature and who has a temper, thats probably listening to others in the locker room complain about Westphal. Thats not the best inviorment for someone like Cousins. All that would do is reinforce his own feelings about his coach. Which obviously aren't very positive right now by all accounts.
Think about this for a moment. Calapari is noted for getting right in a players face. Which I witnessed many times while watching Kentucky play. Thats his style. One of the reasons that some on this fourm didn't think he would be a good NBA coach. And they could be right, although he wouldn't be the first head coach in the NBA to get in someone's face. But my point is that he and Cousins had a good relationship despite it. Cousins has great respect for Calapari. However it has been rumored, that Evans would prefer not to play for Calapari if he had the choice. Don't know if thats true or not, or if said, the context of how it was said. But my point is that Westphal is known as a so called players coach, whatever the hell that means. So was Adelman, and other than demeanor, I see no comparison between the two. So Westphal, who is susposed to be a laid back type of coach, is the one that Cousins has issues with, while Calapari who gets in his face is the one he doesn't have issues with. Something doesn't jell with me. I think there's big trouble in little china.
But while these things may be connected, they are separate issues, and the Cousins issue must be delt with promptly and properly. You need to get his attention, and whatever you do, you don't reward his behavior. Now this is where it gets tricky. What if on one hand, and I'm speaking as management, your hearing a lot of unrest from the troops. And perhaps you feel that Westphal isn't doing the job properly. So here's the question, and this question has been complicated by Cousins actions. If you fire Westphal, are you in some way rewarding Cousins actions in his mind? If so, thats not a good thing. The last thing you would want to do is let Cousins believe he had any part in your decision to let Westphal go. So the irony of the situation, is that Cousns by his actions, may have extended the stay of his coach. Unless you can somehow convince the world and Cousins that your decision was based on the total unrest and direction of the team,
In short, and I'll close now because I've gone on far to long here. This is turning into a mess. And the ship needs to be righted and redirected, and quickly, or the entire season and the promise it held just a few weeks ago will be gone. And by the way, you don't start to do that by throwing our 5th round draft pick into the trash pile as NBA fan suggested.
