DeMarcus Cousins offered some extremely harsh comments about one of his former teams.
Cousins is currently with the Denver Nuggets, which is the second team for whom he has played this season (Milwaukee was the other). Cousins also played for two seasons before that.
Even though he is now on his seventh team, there was a time when Cousins was a franchise player. That was a while ago.
From 2010-2017, Cousins was a center for the Sacramento Kings, averaging double-doubles and making 3 All-Star Games. But Cousins also faced criticism and disciplinary issues while in Sacramento and eventually was traded to the Pelicans.
It’s safe to say that there is no love lost between Cousins and his first NBA team.
In an interview with Marc J. Spears published on Monday, Cousins said if he could re-do one thing in his career, it would have been skipping his pre-draft workout for the Kings so they wouldn’t have drafted him.
“I would’ve skipped my draft workout [in Sacramento],” Cousins told Spears when asked what he would have done differently in his career.
Cousins offered more harsh opinions on the Kings.
“They sucked before I got there. They sucked when I was there. They sucked after I left,” he said of the Kings.
Sacramento has struggled since their strong teams around the 2000s under Rick Adelman. They haven’t made the playoffs since the 2005-2006 season, so it’s not like Cousins is wrong. There was also acrimony between Cousins and the Kings by the time his tenure with the team ended, which is part of the reason he dislikes them so much.
Sacramento cycled through different owners, general managers, and coaches during Cousins’ time there. They have continued to make curious moves, like firing Michael Malone and Dave Joerger as head coaches.
Cousins’ career went downhill after leaving Sacramento, but that’s because he tore his Achilles’ tendon, which led to other leg injuries. He has found a nice home in Denver. Even if he’s a bench player now, the 31-year-old center is probably happy to no longer deal with the Sacramento dysfunction.
