The Finals

Who wins?


  • Total voters
    18
  • Poll closed .

SLAB

Hall of Famer
I didn’t and won’t listen to his rant, but I don’t see what the problem was? Is it not trash to cheer a downed man?

Is Grant saying the cheering didn’t happen? That DMC trashed a whole fanbase for the actions of some?

Or is it just Grant finding a reason to bash Boogie, because that’s what Grant does. (Probably this last one)
 
I didn’t and won’t listen to his rant, but I don’t see what the problem was? Is it not trash to cheer a downed man?

Is Grant saying the cheering didn’t happen? That DMC trashed a whole fanbase for the actions of some?

Or is it just Grant finding a reason to bash Boogie, because that’s what Grant does. (Probably this last one)
Grant defended the cheering and felt people were making too big of a deal out of a natural reaction. He didn’t have anything to say about Klay, Steph and just about everybody else(Raptors included) being pissed off about it.

The point he was trying to make is that Cousins is in no position to complain since he’s seen him countless of times cuss out fans including women at the games and at the airport for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

He said he was ran out of Sacramento. He was ran out of New Orleans(despite no evidence suggesting Cousins tenure there was rocky rather than just ending on circumstance) ....and he predicted that next season we’ll be hearing about how the Warriors are very happy to be rid of him
 
Grant defended the cheering and felt people were making too big of a deal out of a natural reaction. He didn’t have anything to say about Klay, Steph and just about everybody else(Raptors included) being pissed off about it.

The point he was trying to make is that Cousins is in no position to complain since he’s seen him countless of times cuss out fans including women at the games and at the airport for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

He said he was ran out of Sacramento. He was ran out of New Orleans(despite no evidence suggesting Cousins tenure there was rocky rather than just ending on circumstance) ....and he predicted that next season we’ll be hearing about how the Warriors are very happy to be rid of him
Take what Grant says about Cousins with a grain of salt. His hatred of the guy is clearly obsessive. He literally takes a jab at Cousin every single day on his radio show and it's been how long since he's been traded? If you come to Grant with hearsay he will immediately dismiss you but if you come to him with hearsay about Cousins, he will take it as a fact and regurgitate it to the community. That's where you get BS stories about him just walking around cussing fans and women and small children out for no reason.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
we are talking about professional sports and in typical Slim fashion, you like to bring in science to make a point because whatever I have to say in response to your boy Boogie will be responded until you are blue in the face.
What does that even mean, "you like to bring in science"? Did you really just use the phrase "you like to bring in science," as a pejorative?! o_O

What was I supposed to do, instead, talk about my gut? The eye test, maybe? I "brought in science" because it was directly relevant to what you said: of course I think that Cousins could go somewhere else and get injured; there's a ton of science to suggest that there is a significantly high probability that he will go somewhere else and get injured. The reason why there is a significantly high probability that he will go somewhere else and get injured is because human beings, in the aggregate, are horrible at rehabbing from injuries properly, and with sufficient time to complete the rehab. Especially professional athletes, one, because millions of dollars are at stake for them, and two, because their professional reputations are also at stake: no professional athlete wants to be thought of by prospective employers (or their peers, for that matter) as "soft" or "fragile," so they often hurry back from injuries that they shouldn't, usually to their own detriment. And your response to me "bringing in science" was to call it pie in the sky, like you thought it was something I made up.

Neither did I refute your statement that he hasn't really helped his playoff teams: what I said was that it was the truth, but not the whole truth. And it is not the whole truth; it is not reasonable to say that a player is not contributing positively to their teams in the playoffs, without first acknowledging that the reason why they are not contributing positively to their teams in the playoffs is, specifically, because they are injured. And the reason why that is not reasonable is because it's a statement which, on its face, only makes sense if you also believe that DeMarcus Cousins couldn't help the Golden State Warriors, even if he were fully healthy, a statement for which there is no counterfactual. The closest team to the 2018-19 Golden State Warriors that Cousins has ever played on was the 2016 Men's National Team, and Cousins was absolutely a positive factor in their success. Now, you could, if you were so inclined, make the argument that neither team needed him (I, personally, will not be indulging such an argument), but you can't argue that he didn't help them.

I was not disagreeing with you on either point. In case it wasn't clear, my objection was due solely to the fact that your choice of words framed your remarks in such a way as to make it sound like you were attributing a physical weakness to a character flaw, and I'm still trying to figure out how to make that make sense? And, while you're answering that, since you took exception to my "bringing in science," perhaps you'll do me the kindness of answering this, as well: what part of what I said was off-topic? What part of what I said does not relate to professional sports?
 
Take what Grant says about Cousins with a grain of salt. His hatred of the guy is clearly obsessive. He literally takes a jab at Cousin every single day on his radio show and it's been how long since he's been traded? If you come to Grant with hearsay he will immediately dismiss you but if you come to him with hearsay about Cousins, he will take it as a fact and regurgitate it to the community. That's where you get BS stories about him just walking around cussing fans and women and small children out for no reason.
The last game at the old arena, Cuz was not himself. It showed the whole game. He was walking through the tunnel and some lady started yelling at him. He walked over and stood there listening as she screamed at him. He then walked back through the tunnel to the locker room. I was 10 feet behind him the whole time. He said absolutely nothing to her just listened.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
tbf, Cousins has played awful outside of game 2.
So what? What does that have to do with whether or not I have empathy and sympathy for the guy? What part of feeling awful for Cousins requires him to have any particular requisite standard of play in the Finals?

Healthy or not, I think this really attributes to the idea of Cousins not playing winning basketball...
What do you mean, healthy or not? Those things don't exist in a vacuum.

Struggled to win 30 games with the Kings as the franchise player
I'm not re-litigating this again. I may love to argue, but I'm off that particular narcotic. If you want to believe that Cousins was the reason those teams didn't win, you got it.

Went to NO with AD... and they played better without him after his Achilles injury
That's... somewhat ahistorical. It'd be more accurate to say that they were better with Mirotic, whom Cousins never played with. In the immediate aftermath of losing Cousins, the Pelicans lost six of seven, and were in serious danger of spiraling out of the playoffs. Demps made a good, if desperate, move in trading for Mirotic. To say that they played better without Cousins, not unlike the "MVP Candidate Stojakovic" season also ignores the fact that their strength of schedule dropped precipitously after the All-Star break.

If anything, I would argue that the 2018-19 Pelicans (before Davis was shut down, of course) more accurately reflect how much "better" they really were without him.


After returning from injury, he struggled to fit with the fast paced Warriors. He struggled to fit in the offense as a ball dominant player.
My rebuttal would be that the "struggle" he had to fit in can be reasonably explained by conditioning. Which, in turn, can be reasonably explained by the fact that he was coming back from injury. Cousins, after the adrenaline wore off, after his first two games back, fell into a slump, after his lack of conditioning caught up with him. Then, in the last ten games of the regular season, he appeared to have rounded himself into shape, and played pretty efficient ball (something like 15/10, rounded to the nearest whole number, on 50 percent shooting), and was a net positive for Golden State.

Then he re-injured himself, and had to start all over again. Unfortunately for him, he's not going to get eighteen games to play himself back into shape, this time.


We have hindsight, but it's clear Cousins was never as good as we tried to make him out to be. He was never a guy who could be the #1 player on a playoff team. He's Kevin Love... big stats on bad teams.
I've never seen Cousins play on an NBA team that was built to complement his skill set. Not even once. When I see that fail, then I'll concede that he can't do it; until then, I'll only stipulate that he hasn't done it.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
Let's see .. Kawhi basically screwed over his old team over... Well nobody's quite sure why he did it. (And even so, some disagree that Leonard even did anything wrong, such as slim).
You're right, I don't think that Leonard did anything wrong. But that also plays into why he's not humble, or a role model. I am one hundred percent in favor of athletes having more power, and more agency, at every turn, but just because I think that he should have the right to quit on his team, doesn't mean that it's admirable when he does so.

Fortunately for me, a) my son is an adult, and doesn't like sports, anyway, so he never looked to athletes as role models, in the first place. And b) I never required athletes to be role models, for my personal consumption of sports-as-entertainment; to the contrary, I prefer it when athletes are kinda jerky... which is part of why I like Cousins so much.

What's funny to me is the Venn diagram of people who hate Gregg Popovich interviews/press conferences, and people who think that Kawhi Leonard is 'humble.' There is nothing that conveys humility in the way Leonard speaks. That dude doesn't talk like somebody who's humble, he talks like somebody who doesn't understand how language works.
 
You're right, I don't think that Leonard did anything wrong. But that also plays into why he's not humble, or a role model. I am one hundred percent in favor of athletes having more power, and more agency, at every turn, but just because I think that he should have the right to quit on his team, doesn't mean that it's admirable when he does so.

Fortunately for me, a) my son is an adult, and doesn't like sports, anyway, so he never looked to athletes as role models, in the first place. And b) I never required athletes to be role models, for my personal consumption of sports-as-entertainment; to the contrary, I prefer it when athletes are kinda jerky... which is part of why I like Cousins so much.

What's funny to me is the Venn diagram of people who hate Gregg Popovich interviews/press conferences, and people who think that Kawhi Leonard is 'humble.' There is nothing that conveys humility in the way Leonard speaks. That dude doesn't talk like somebody who's humble, he talks like somebody who doesn't understand how language works.
Humility may not exactly be the right word in the sense that he's not a proud or confident guy, but more that he doesn't draw attention to himself or seek the limelight (at least this was the idea before he ditched the Spurs). Something along the lines of "shutting up and doing his job" both on and off the court is what makes him attractive as a "role model" I guess. Maybe a better word is professional? Again, pre-Spurs ditching.
 

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
What does that even mean, "you like to bring in science"? Did you really just use the phrase "you like to bring in science," as a pejorative?! o_O

What was I supposed to do, instead, talk about my gut? The eye test, maybe? I "brought in science" because it was directly relevant to what you said: of course I think that Cousins could go somewhere else and get injured; there's a ton of science to suggest that there is a significantly high probability that he will go somewhere else and get injured. The reason why there is a significantly high probability that he will go somewhere else and get injured is because human beings, in the aggregate, are horrible at rehabbing from injuries properly, and with sufficient time to complete the rehab. Especially professional athletes, one, because millions of dollars are at stake for them, and two, because their professional reputations are also at stake: no professional athlete wants to be thought of by prospective employers (or their peers, for that matter) as "soft" or "fragile," so they often hurry back from injuries that they shouldn't, usually to their own detriment. And your response to me "bringing in science" was to call it pie in the sky, like you thought it was something I made up.

Neither did I refute your statement that he hasn't really helped his playoff teams: what I said was that it was the truth, but not the whole truth. And it is not the whole truth; it is not reasonable to say that a player is not contributing positively to their teams in the playoffs, without first acknowledging that the reason why they are not contributing positively to their teams in the playoffs is, specifically, because they are injured. And the reason why that is not reasonable is because it's a statement which, on its face, only makes sense if you also believe that DeMarcus Cousins couldn't help the Golden State Warriors, even if he were fully healthy, a statement for which there is no counterfactual. The closest team to the 2018-19 Golden State Warriors that Cousins has ever played on was the 2016 Men's National Team, and Cousins was absolutely a positive factor in their success. Now, you could, if you were so inclined, make the argument that neither team needed him (I, personally, will not be indulging such an argument), but you can't argue that he didn't help them.

I was not disagreeing with you on either point. In case it wasn't clear, my objection was due solely to the fact that your choice of words framed your remarks in such a way as to make it sound like you were attributing a physical weakness to a character flaw, and I'm still trying to figure out how to make that make sense? And, while you're answering that, since you took exception to my "bringing in science," perhaps you'll do me the kindness of answering this, as well: what part of what I said was off-topic? What part of what I said does not relate to professional sports?
again, you are writing way too much to try to make a point. one paragraph or two would suffice. do you really think I'm going to read your wall of text?
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
Humility may not exactly be the right word in the sense that he's not a proud or confident guy, but more that he doesn't draw attention to himself or seek the limelight (at least this was the idea before he ditched the Spurs). Something along the lines of "shutting up and doing his job" both on and off the court is what makes him attractive as a "role model" I guess. Maybe a better word is professional? Again, pre-Spurs ditching.
I'll concede to that: aside from quitting on the Spurs, Leonard has, mostly, been professional. I don't think that, on its own, makes him any more attractive a role model than the average retail clerk, but mileage varies.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
Grant defended the cheering and felt people were making too big of a deal out of a natural reaction. He didn’t have anything to say about Klay, Steph and just about everybody else(Raptors included) being pissed off about it.

The point he was trying to make is that Cousins is in no position to complain since he’s seen him countless of times cuss out fans including women at the games and at the airport for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

He said he was ran out of Sacramento. He was ran out of New Orleans(despite no evidence suggesting Cousins tenure there was rocky rather than just ending on circumstance) ....and he predicted that next season we’ll be hearing about how the Warriors are very happy to be rid of him
Zero percent chance that Napear brings that same energy to anybody, to their face. Or anybody he can't have his producer dump from the line.
 
I'll concede to that: aside from quitting on the Spurs, Leonard has, mostly, been professional. I don't think that, on its own, makes him any more attractive a role model than the average retail clerk, but mileage varies.
Re the retail clerk point - I think it's not so much about just being professional but doing so in the context of his industry/peers etc. As an example, me driving a cheap normal, non sporty car isn't modest, because that's all I can afford (if at all). A billionaire doing so however, might be lauded for his modesty.
 
The point he was trying to make is that Cousins is in no position to complain since he’s seen him countless of times cuss out fans including women at the games and at the airport for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
It's an absolutely terrible point to try to make. Cousins doesn't have to be a good guy (which we actually know that he is) to understand that cheering an injury is bush league or to have a right to comment on it. Especially a player in KD that every fan knew had an injury that had kept him out for an extended period of time and just looked like he injured it again.

If Cousins had ever cheered or applauded an opponents injury in his past, then he'd be a hypocrite with no leg to stand on (no pun intended). But to my knowledge that's never been the case.

What's next? Ray Rice shouldn't comment on how horrible a school shooting is because he once committed a domestic violence crime? SMH.

If that's the case, Peaches should never rant or comment on any celebrity's behavior due to the way he handles his own callers in a very rude and juvenile manner. He's in no position to complain, right?
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
Yeah there is despicable people everywhere in the world to paint a whole fan base after a few disgusting people is wrong.
Ehh, it would be one thing if that were the only incident but the Raptors fan base has gone from well respected to reviled through a bunch of dumb actions of their own doing. Jurassic Park freaking cheered like they were watching a buzzer beater when KD went down. It’s not just a few. Not a majority, maybe. But more than there should be
 
Ehh, it would be one thing if that were the only incident but the Raptors fan base has gone from well respected to reviled through a bunch of dumb actions of their own doing. Jurassic Park freaking cheered like they were watching a buzzer beater when KD went down. It’s not just a few. Not a majority, maybe. But more than there should be

not really.. like 15 percent of them cheered maybe? and most of them were probably drunk/stoned idiots.
The initial cheer was for the Ibaka Breakaway.
 
Ehh, it would be one thing if that were the only incident but the Raptors fan base has gone from well respected to reviled through a bunch of dumb actions of their own doing. Jurassic Park freaking cheered like they were watching a buzzer beater when KD went down. It’s not just a few. Not a majority, maybe. But more than there should be
That is garbage. Not everyone was cheering because of KD injury and at the same time the Raptors had a fast break and got a foul call. So who is to say they weren’t cheering that? Now if you pointed a couple of fans in the arena waving bye to KD as he was helped off the court. Yes that’s disgusting but that only a couple of people out of the 18000 that were there. Funny though you don’t point that a lot of fans were giving him a standing o chanting KD KD as he walked off the court. Too label all of the fans is so wrong
 
Yeah there is despicable people everywhere in the world to paint a whole fan base after a few disgusting people is wrong.
I agree. I'm not one blaming or labeling all Toronto fans. Just acknowleding that many of the things that have happened there recently aren't good.

I'm a Dodgers fan living in Giants/A's territory. I know not all Dodgers fans are like the ones that severely injured Brian Stowe. My parents are 49ers fans and were at the 1987 playoff game when the Niners were upset by the Vikings. They saw Vikings fans being beaten up in the parking lot by groups of Niners fans. But the idiots that did that don't represent all fans.

That said, some fan bases have earned worse reputations than others. For good reason.
 
I agree. I'm not one blaming or labeling all Toronto fans. Just acknowleding that many of the things that have happened there recently aren't good.

I'm a Dodgers fan living in Giants/A's territory. I know not all Dodgers fans are like the ones that severely injured Brian Stowe. My parents are 49ers fans and were at the 1987 playoff game when the Niners were upset by the Vikings. They saw Vikings fans being beaten up in the parking lot by groups of Niners fans. But the idiots that did that don't represent all fans.

That said, some fan bases have earned worse reputations than others. For good reason.
And Toronto is one not of them
 
Ehh, it would be one thing if that were the only incident but the Raptors fan base has gone from well respected to reviled through a bunch of dumb actions of their own doing. Jurassic Park freaking cheered like they were watching a buzzer beater when KD went down. It’s not just a few. Not a majority, maybe. But more than there should be
No actually not true at all. If you watch that video clip above it's really not that many people and as has been pointed out you can't prove one way or the other if those select people were cheering the Durant injury or the potential fast break from the turnover. You're just buying into dumb social media hype (fake controversy) and letting your love for DeMarcus Cousins blind you. You're normally a very good and accurate poster here (and still are) but I think you are way off base on this one.

Yes some Raptors fans are acting like idiots. And by some I mean a portion of them but not even close to a majority. They are still one of the better and least disrespectful fanbases in the league.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
That is garbage. Not everyone was cheering because of KD injury and at the same time the Raptors had a fast break and got a foul call. So who is to say they weren’t cheering that? Now if you pointed a couple of fans in the arena waving bye to KD as he was helped off the court. Yes that’s disgusting but that only a couple of people out of the 18000 that were there. Funny though you don’t point that a lot of fans were giving him a standing o chanting KD KD as he walked off the court. Too label all of the fans is so wrong
There is an argument to be made that they were only cheering because the Raptors players were making them.

I never said the entire Toronto fanbase was bad, just a far larger portion than you think.

Plus any fanbase with Drake as its self-appointed "face" can't be all that awesome