DeMarcus Cousins: ‘I’ve been playing like [bleep], man’
The Sacramento Kings, losers of five of six, are struggling. At 7-15 on the year, the Kings are rapidly fading back from a crowded pack of Western Conference playoff hopefuls that endured their own surprisingly slow starts to 2015-16.
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DeMarcus Cousins has typified his team’s struggles, shooting poorly (for him) near the rim all season, taking more long jumpers than ever, making just 37 percent of his looks during that six-game turn, 24 percent over his last three games, and including a 5-20 on Sunday night in Oklahoma City. Cousins also missed six of nine free throws in that loss, including two in the final minute that would have given the Kings a three-point lead. Kevin Durant went on to hit a jumper to give OKC its own lead, as the Thunder pulled out the necessary stops to grab the win.
Following the loss, Cousins did not mince the sort of words that we have to bleep out. From Jason Jones at the Sacramento Bee:
“I’ve been playing like (crud), man,” Cousins said. “I say that’s our problem, it’s me. I’ve been playing like absolute (crud).”
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“I’ve never been in a stretch like this, but stay positive, stay together, stay in the gym and let’s try to figure out whatever it is that’s going wrong,” Cousins said. “I know it’s a mental thing right now. It’s hard to get in that rhythm when you’re not seeing that ball go through the basket at a rate you’re used to. But you’ve got to stay positive, that’s all I can do.”
Cousins has played four games since sitting out three with a lower back strain. He had 31 points last Monday in a win against Dallas, but the last three games, all away from Sacramento, have been a struggle.
Cousins said his back is not the problem.
“I don’t want to make no excuses, but I’ve been playing like (crud),” Cousins said. “No other excuse.”
Scouts who have followed the Kings recently have noticed he is not moving as well as he has in the past, and he often trails the play, which hints that he might be hurting or out of shape. Cousins missed three games last week because of a back injury but declined to blame his recent performance on his back.
Cousins has missed eight of his team’s 22 games, due to back woes and a one-game suspension. It’s true that he has looked a little lackluster since returning from his most recent stint on the shelf, but that’s never stopped him from putting out all-world stats with a floor-bound game. Still, he’s at 40.8 shooting in spite of those 25 points per contest, and though coach George Karl has attempted to mix things up with his teammates, nothing seems to be consistently working thus far. For the Kings to turn the corner, Cousins has to play like an MVP candidate.
He knows this, which is where the frustration sets in. It can’t be easy recover from back woes on the fly, during the day to day grind of an NBA season. Next game is on Tuesday, and DeMarcus will have to deal with Derrick Favors (who might just swipe DMC’s All-Star spot this year).
The Kings would have to go on something like a 35-25 run to finish the season in order to top .500 and possibly (if current trends hold) make the postseason for the first time in what would be a decade. That’s if the rest of the West (OK, maybe not the team that hasn’t lost yet in 22 tries) keeps up the same winning percentage, and with Houston (holders of the eighth and final seed in the playoff bracket) having possibly hit their low point, the Rockets could prove hard to catch up to.
Now, expecting a playoff berth from a Kings roster in its first year with Rajon Rondo running the show and first full year with George Karl in charge might seem like a stretch to you and me, but remember that this team was put together to make the postseason. A game against the Thunder, even in Oklahoma City, was supposed to be the exact sort of game the team’s braintrust thought it would compete well enough to have a chance to win heading into 2015-16 – months after making a series of win-now deals that went well beyond inking Rondo to a one-year, $10 million deal.
The hope here is that the Kings did compete well enough to win, staging a strong comeback against a Thunder team that should have won going away after entering the fourth quarter with a 12-point lead. That’s the silver lining, that even after losing five of six and even with Cousins’ wildly inconsistent (trust me, he’s been dominant at times, but there is also … this) year that the Kings haven’t given in just yet.
In spite of all the rude words, and cruddy comments, the Kings are sticking it out there in ways that don’t remind on the way the team’s players (understandably, to an extent) gave up on 2014-15 after coach Michael Malone was let go. The little things are an improvement, despite the similar record.
Things might change for the worse as the season moves along, and the Kings could regress into the trash fire we all expected, but for now this team clearly cares. To that, even after defeat after defeat, the credit has to go to Karl, Rondo, and DeMarcus Cousins. Even when he plays like [crud].
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
