Deron Williams and Avery Johnson may have stolen the day's headlines when it came to potentially dysfunctional player/coach pairings, but DeMarcus Cousins and Keith Smart aren't far behind. Smart told reporters today that he's made a decision about whether or not Cousins will play for the Kings tomorrow against the Knicks, but he has yet to tell the media or the player (Twitter link via Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee). Here are the day's other Cousins-related updates:
- Cousins' answers and body language during his media availability today didn't suggest he's anything but bitter and angry, tweets Bryan May of Sacramento's KXTV-TV.
- Despite teams calling about Cousins' availability, the Kings don't seem all that eager to move him, according to Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld. One league executive indicated to Kyler that it's unclear what sort of value Sacramento could extract for Cousins, since many teams wouldn't want to roll the dice on such a volatile and disruptive player.
- In his latest mailbag, Keith Langlois of Pistons.com writes that he feels the Pistons' interest in Cousins may have been overstated in some reports. According to Langlois, the Pistons were once very interested in Cousins, but have since addressed their frontcourt needs with players like Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond.
- Victor Contreras of the Sacramento Bee believes it's time for the Kings to deal Cousins.
I’d give Singleton & a 1st for Cousins in a heartbeat to pair w/Wall & Beal in Washington (which actually should be Harden and Wall). Not to mention Seripan and they’d have 2 young bigs to develop together.
Washington used their amnesty in order to get away from a troubled big man in the first place, I don’t see why they’d entertain that idea again.