DeMarcus Cousins and the Red Flags of Doom

This sounds like the beginning of a talk you gave in Sacrament Meeting. Haha.

Congrats about your son.

Thanks LPA.

KillerKing?
SavageBeast?
LeaguePassAddict?

Great post though. This is how I’ve felt about Cousins the entire time. He’s a kid that’s done a couple of dumb angry teenager type of things. But at the same time, he’s been antagonizes a lot. Racist calls from Mississippi fans? He kind of laughed them off. Hack-a-Shaq tactics during the NCAA tourny to try and piss him off? He kept his cool and even pulled a teammate away from a minor scuffle. He just smiled and hit his free throws.

I don’t deny that the “red flags” are there are that he has a bit of an anger problem. I do have a problem with anyone who thinks its more than what it is. I read Amick’s article about his mom. I didn’t hear a mention of his dad. It sounds like he had to be the man of the house and carry that pressure early on. Is it any surprise he may be a little emotionally stunted and wants to be immature and act like a kid? Hell, send the kid to Donte’s house to play some video games. Sounds like he could use it.

There are two things I’d like to point out

First, the pressure these kids are feeling is much bigger compared to all other peers in everyday families like ours yours and ours. We’re talking about millions of fans all over the world criticizing, praising or bashing. The psychology of a young player takes multiple hits every single day whether these are positive or negative. Millions of dollars are invested on them for a job that needs a 24/7 focus. And that brings me to the 2nd point.

Unfortunately there are no moms in the NBA Teams’ offices. I doubt there are female coaches. That’s a man’s world and no matter how good and protective Petrie or others trainers are, they are men. It could be a good idea to have some feminine energy in those offices, dealing with the players, helping the out, guiding them.

But this was a good and unique perspective on an issue that’s has yet to have been spoken from this point of view. Rec’d.

nothing to add, really

Thanks LPA. I always find it interesting how sports and (some) players make inroads to our emotions and our lives.
Of course, we can’t know the future of DMC. He is a big kid, and he admits, he is a kid. I have seen him called “a growing man” by Coach Cal and “very immature, he will need extra attention” by Jay Bilas. I am sure they are both right. I bet you could apply those same labels to all but a handful of last night’s 60 draftees.
The one thing we do know about DeMarcus Cousins (see Sam Amick’s nice FanHouse piece) is that he has been a national figure since being a 6’6" 14 year old High School freshman. The kid was born with big shoes and he is just finding the personal growth to fill them. As we all grow and grow up at different rates, this is no surprise. Having to contend with growing up different and having cameras and media and coaches and agents and who knows who’s hanging around ratches up the difficulty factor exponentially.

Right now, the kid is bright enough to be saying the right things. Let’s see if his actions follow those words. Let’s hope the Kings supply the support system needed to help this kid become the basketball star and individual we expect him to be. We all expect the naysayers to be out in full force to criticize his every move. This next year will test his mettle. It is a heck of a way to live, but it is the life he has chosen. I wish him luck.

Many of you know that I am a stay at home dad with two young boys. Even at 7 and almost 3, the personalities of these two are totally apparent. Toby is head strong and doesn’t listen worth a damn. Brayden is a prince- he kills you with kindness and hugs. Both are just trying to get their way, they just have different approaches. Wesley Johnson broke the big 4 by being the best kid in the world. Cousins lasted to 5 because his approach is less desirable. At the end of the day, both might end up being great people, they just choose to show you who they are in different ways.

I really think that all these red flags are a whole bunch of nothing. Gah, I just want to see this team on the court. GO KINGS.

I am glad your son is doing well, and glad he is not too much of a momma’s boy.

I hope you are right about Cousins. I think you are.

I am also hopefully optimistic about Cousins…

I had run-ins with coaches in school. To be honest there always seemed to be a teacher that got a kick out of something inappropriate. Whether it was watching two kids fight for a while before breaking it up, belittling kids, or just got a kick out of being in charge and able to get in your face.

The truth is that we don’t and probably won’t know all that has happened and what his responsibility was in it. The thing is that even if he was a complete F-up he now has his big chance to make it all right. Despite all the adversity he has made it into the NBA and now has a chance to be a star.

I believe that people can redeem themselves so even if he was a complete loser at one point, which clearly isn’t true, I have no problem giving Cousins the benefit of the doubt. I am all for letting him start out with a fresh start here.

I think we can do that. Sure, there will be some detractors, but we want this kid to shine. We want him to take on Pau and Odom and kick ass. That is what this is all about and where we are now heading.

Great ideas, fun to read. Thanks to you, LPA, and ALL moms for taking care of us headcases while we figure ourselves out.

Do you have some training in writing, because that was excellent!

Your dealings with Killer remind me of my mom. That’s about the best compliment I can give you. Keep up the good work KillerKing.

I’m getting in on this thread a little late, but I’m just now stumbling upon it and I just can’t help myself from commenting. As a UK fan and a Cousins advocate I think this was very well done and I applaud you. I too am a mother, (though my children are quite a bit younger than yours and both girls) and I think it’s very interesting to see that your opinion on Cousins is pretty close to mirroring mine.

I wrote a few remarks a few days before the draft in response to some questions from a Wolves fan (yeah, I don’t think they are real pleased they didn’t get DeMarcus) and well, if it’s alright I would like to reiterate it here as they fit so nicely with what you wrote and it might also help those who might still be a bit skeptical about DC to see him in a different light. I hope you don’t mind?

In regards to the Orton comments – and this also goes along with what crazyno1catfan says above, I wouldn’t take what Daniel Orton says about Cousins all that seriously. Like she mentioned, Daniel did demonstrate some selfish behavior in his last few months at UK and I personally was very disappointed in Daniel for making the remarks he did about Cousins leading up to the draft. I love all our boys (though admittedly some more than others (see, Cousins : )) and will always try to say something nice about all of them but what Daniel did was incredibly selfish in my book.

I don’t expect teammates to cover for one another, per se, but I would have loved for Daniel to have tried to promote himself a little more as opposed to demoting DeMarcus. But, so it goes, I guess and that is one of the issues I have with Daniel, who unlike to DeMarcus, it appears that the word teammate meant little or nothing to. DeMarcus was an excellent teammate, and although I, of course, didn’t play with him or coach him, Coach Calipari basically said the same thing (full article is here and it’s a good one if ya’ll haven’t read it) —

Calipari said he couldn’t be more impressed with Cousins’ personality and the way he respects his coaches and teammates.
"He’s not some self-absorbed jag-off," Calipari said. “He’s really not. He’s got a huge heart for other people. He cares about how they feel.”

As far as his flags about attitude and temper, all I will say is this — DeMarcus got a lot worse than he gave last year and the most publicized incident (the Louisville/Swopshire thing that I’m sure you all are aware of) that suggested he had a supposed temper was totally and completely provoked by Swopshire, IMO.

I realize opinions vary on players and such and I will be the first to say, to each their own and you can certainly judge for yourself, but a knee to the head is definitely provocation in my book (you can see the incident again here, if you wish). I think it’s also fairly important to note that that incident was very early on in the season. Things were so new to DeMarcus then, he was just getting used to the college game and he probably didn’t know any better than to try and defend himself.

DeMarcus has been fighting the mantra that he has attitude issues since he was like a sophomore in high school. The kid isn’t evil, he isn’t mean. He’s just misunderstood and a tad on the goofy side.

I see DeMarcus as someone who cares too much rather than too little, someone who is full of such remarkable talent, plays the game with such intense passion, energy and heart, and who just so happens to have more personality in his little finger than a lot of people have in their entire body. If you take away the fire inside him you also run the risk of taking away the talent, too, as I think that one feeds the other, and I sure as hell don’t want that and I can’t imagine that Kings fans do either. He’s perfect just the way he is, thank you.

Seriously, I think the kid has an extremely big heart (he actually wrote a little “thank you” on his facebook account to all the UK fans for their support the day after the draft, which I thought was incredibly sweet) and I think he just wants to be loved, welcomed and accepted without qualification. We did that at UK and he became a fan favorite. If you do the same, you will get the same — all he has to give.

Thanks again for this lovely fanpost, it’s nice to know that we can let DeMarcus go to a certain extent and that we will be handing him off to a great group of fans, that he will be in good hands and that ya’ll will be taking extra good care of him.

Oh, and one last thing, I must admit that the Kings were not my NBA team as I already follow one (chosen because of my dad, if you must know, so you can blame him : )), but I will say that having DeMarcus on your roster is a hell of an incentive to also follow the Kings and I want to wish ya’ll good luck in the coming NBA season.

(sorry for the ridiculous length of this post, I don’t know if one of such length is taboo here or not? I guess I just get a little carried away when I am super passionate and believe in something or in this case, someone. : ))

This fanpost kicked ass. That is all.