What a week.
From Saturday to Saturday the Kings had an absolutely disastrous go of it. The events of last weekend are well chronicled – Kings lose at the buzzer against Oklahoma City, DeMarcus Cousins loses his cool, a fight ensues leading to a monstrous fine and a removal from the team plane for the Kings’ budding young star center. Cousins rejoins the team in time to see Tyreke Evans leave the line-up with a flare up of the painful plantar fasciitis that has plagued him all season. Evans, scheduled to play in the Rookie Challenge, is forced out of the game due to injury and has to watch from the sidelines. Instead of the NBA replacing Evans with fellow sophomore and teammate Omri Casspi, David Stern chooses Oklahoma six man James Harden. All of this before Friday night’s All-Star weekend kicked off, when things really got interesting.
In case you missed it, Cousins dominated the Rookie Challenge. Clearly, he was the best player on the floor, scoring 33 points, grabbing 14 rebounds and adding three steals to lead the rookies to a second consecutive win. And then things got weird.
Craig Sager trashing DeMarcus Cousins in front of a nationally televised audience? Craig Sager? Really? Shame on you and shame on TNT for employing you.
What’s worse is Sager was right about one thing. John Wall should have shared the award with his close friend and college teammate because this was a sham. Really, Wall should have handed the award to Cousins and apologized for the horrible injustice perpetrated by the voters. Sure, Wall had 12 points and 22 assists but many of those assists were to Cousins and those last two points for Wall came off an absolutely spectacular off the backboard pass from none other than DeMarcus Cousins.
Last season, the Kings’ Tyreke Evans was faced with a similar situation. Evans was named MVP, but instead of taking the trophy and waving to the crowd, he asked the San Antonio Spurs’ DeJuan Blair to come up and share the award with him. Classy? Yes, and these two weren’t college teammates.
Losses, a fight, an injury, a snub or two and public humiliation. Let me give you a little glimpse into what’s next.
- Back-to-back games on the road on Tuesday and Wednesday against Miami and Orlando.
- The trade deadline on Thursday, February 24th.
- The March 1st deadline for the Maloofs to file relocation papers with the NBA.
We will have more on that last bullet point shortly as Marc Stein is reporting that the Maloofs are seriously considering a move to Anaheim.
Once again, what a week.
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