DeMarcus Cousins: Kings treated me like ‘piece of cattle’

DeMarcus Cousins is not over how his departure from Sacramento went down.

Cousins opened up to Marc J. Spears of the Undefeated about the abrupt trade that sent him from the Kings to the New Orleans Pelicans, and he still harbors hard feelings toward some members of the Sacramento front office.

“I wanted my legacy to end in Sacramento,” Cousins said. “I invested so much time and energy. Everything I had, my whole heart was into that city. Just for it to end the way it did, that was the part that was f—-. But it was never about the money. I don’t give a s— about the money.

“Honestly, Vivek [Ranadive, the Kings’ owner] tried to reach out. It was about two weeks later [after the trade]. I just told him, ‘Look, why are you reaching out to me two weeks later? There is no point. If you feel like you’re doing the right thing now, it just shows who you really are as an owner.’ That was my message back to him. And I haven’t spoken to him about it since.”

Cousins went as far as to compare the Kings’ treatment of him to that of an animal, voicing his anger that the team was not up front with him about the deal.

“Of course, I would’ve been mad. But I still would have respected it,” Cousins said of a scenario in which the Kings were up front about trade talks. “Come to me like a man. I’m a human being at the end of the day. Don’t treat me like a f—ing piece of cattle.”

Cousins was a fair bit less forthcoming in a recent media session ahead of his first game against Sacramento since the trade, but he opens up a bit here. It sounds like this will bother him for quite a while.