Cousins traded to Pelicans

[AbeVigodaLive]

I suspect I'm the only one here who thinks champagne corks have ben popping all day at Kings HQ. They get rid of a known troublemaker...on and off the court...and they get back two former top six picks (one who was highly regarded coming out of last year's draft), another first round pick almost certainly destined to be a lottery pick, and another second. All this in exchange for a guy who, despite being very productive, has never been able to lead his team to the playoffs...and is destined to be done in 16 months anyway.

I agree with the general consensus here Kings' management is generally bat shit crazy, but I don't see any craziness in this deal...three lottery picks and a second rounder in exchange for a nutcase loser like Boogie sounds like grand theft larceny to me.

I'm not sure about an all out declaration of independence type celebration, but I tend to agree with you that the Kings relish the chance to move forward without him. The Pels will find out soon enough why he came so cheap.

And all that's fine and dandy. There are legit concerns about Cousins so I get why Sacramento wants to start over. But we can't just ignore all the other details in play here... primarily why NOW?

1. Could have gotten about 2x as much a few months ago. Or a year ago. Or two years ago. There are rumors that the Kings could have received more even 2 days before... or 2 hours before.
2. Every move the Kings have done over the past 3+ seasons was to make the playoffs... and they mortgaged their future in making those moves (MANY EXAMPLES OF THIS)... so the Kings are in the 9th spot now, finally about to make the playoffs. And now they hit reset for $0.50 on the dollar?
3. Why not even wait a few more days until the trade deadline? To save $700 on airfare from NO for Boogie?

Here's Cousins saying goodbye to Kings fans... he might have been an ass to teammates, coaches, front office staff and officials... but by most reports, he embraced and was embraced by much of the city.

[youtube]U7or2Y2zL54[/youtube]

[TheFuture]

The biggest mistake was the FO believing they were driving up the price by saying he wasn't going anywhere. That seemed to tie their hands on publicly auctioning cousins. Then they panic without leveraging the Pelicans offer for the last few days of the deadline. What a joke of a franchise.

[TAFKASP]

Having gotten to know this board fairly well even if a trade offer was on the table fans here would over value our current players and shun the deal. But since that didn't happen typical apathy sets in. SOP around Minnesota sports scene I think.

[Monster]

It would be interesting to see how many people in this forum would have been willing to give up a similar package that the Kings got which would be basically Dunn and next year's pick (if we could have traded it) and whatever 2nd rounders need to be included for Cousins considering you aren't certain he will resign. It's not a no-brainer for me and I'm a Cousins fan and I always have been. My point is if I pause a bit considering that (and I don't value Dunn that highly) you wonder what other teams were willing to give up. It still doesn't seem like the Kings came out well and like a local article pointed out this is just validating how well Flip came out with the Love situation.

[Monster]

Who needs Cousins when you have WCS? A healthy Tyreke Evans will also keep them competitive. Skal had some productive minutes as well. It will be interesting to see how that team finishes out.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Who needs Cousins when you have WCS? A healthy Tyreke Evans will also keep them competitive. Skal had some productive minutes as well. It will be interesting to see how that team finishes out.

They have to finish in the bottom 10... or they lose their pick to Chicago.

Even if they tank hard... Philadelphia can choose to swap picks with Sacramento.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Imagine the deflated attitudes in New Orleans. They had to be so fired up for the first home game of the Cousins era, until they got a first taste of the "Cousins impact". Same act, different time zone. He puts up huge stats again, and they lose by 30 at home. There will be lots of justification and explaining...you know Davis and Cousins just need some time together. But I think it's deeper than that. Cousins just doesn't make NBA teams better.

[Monster]

I think it's a worthwhile read on Cousins talking about the trade etc even if you don't like Cousins.

https://theundefeated.com/features/demarcus-cousins-sacramento-kings-trade/

[AbeVigodaLive]

Imagine the deflated attitudes in New Orleans. They had to be so fired up for the first home game of the Cousins era, until they got a first taste of the "Cousins impact". Same act, different time zone. He puts up huge stats again, and they lose by 30 at home. There will be lots of justification and explaining...you know Davis and Cousins just need some time together. But I think it's deeper than that. Cousins just doesn't make NBA teams better.

To be fair...

1. It's one game.
2. The team shot 6 - 31 on three pointers. They just gave up arguably their best three point shooter in the trade.
3. The PG sucked balls. 3 - 12 fg / 6 poins / 7 TOs. It was one of the worst games of his career. We could just say he had a rough night... or blame the 30 point loss on the guy who shot 58% for 27 points. 14 rebounds. 5 assists. 5 steals. 4 Blocks. 1 TO.
4. Give it time. To make such a kneejerk reaction after one game seems a bit myopic. Stats be damned... but Cousins was brilliant on the boxscore last night... his teammates sucked balls. They deserve at least SOME of the blame.

[Monster]

Imagine the deflated attitudes in New Orleans. They had to be so fired up for the first home game of the Cousins era, until they got a first taste of the "Cousins impact". Same act, different time zone. He puts up huge stats again, and they lose by 30 at home. There will be lots of justification and explaining...you know Davis and Cousins just need some time together. But I think it's deeper than that. Cousins just doesn't make NBA teams better.

To be fair...

1. It's one game.
2. The team shot 6 - 31 on three pointers. They just gave up arguably their best three point shooter in the trade.
3. The PG sucked balls. 3 - 12 fg / 6 poins / 7 TOs. It was one of the worst games of his career. We could just say he had a rough night... or blame the 30 point loss on the guy who shot 58% for 27 points. 14 rebounds. 5 assists. 5 steals. 4 Blocks. 1 TO.
4. Give it time. To make such a kneejerk reaction after one game seems a bit myopic. Stats be damned... but Cousins was brilliant on the boxscore last night... his teammates sucked balls. They deserve at least SOME of the blame.

I'll add to what Abe said that Lou Williams scored 27 for the Rockets who already were a terrific offensive team. They added a guy to their team that was averaging 18ppg off the bench...in 24mpg. Insane That's almost 28ppg per 36 minutes. The Rockets added their own very good player to a much better team and won big. Why is that such a shock? Houston has Lou Williams AND Eric Gordon coming off the bench. That's unbelieveavle.

For me the biggest shock of the box score is that Bobby Brown is still on Houston's roster. Who knew?