After Vlade Divac and DeMarcus Cousins both said he wouldn’t be going anywhere this season, Boogie got shipped out to New Orleans, merely hours after the all-star game.
For Cousins and Sacramento both this is a fresh start. After finding out during a press conference, Cousins originally looked surprised and even a little hurt before complimenting the city of New Orleans. Cousins said he wanted to retire with Sacramento and get his jersey hanging in the rafters. He constantly stuck up for his city. And how did the majority of Sac-Town residents/fans respond to the news?
They didn’t blame it on the sunshine, the moonlight or even the good times. The people of Sacramento blamed all of their franchises failures since 2010 purely on Boogie. This franchise that has had 6 coaches since Boogie came into the league in 2010. This franchise that has squandered nearly every lottery pick they’ve had since Boogie. This franchise that has surrounded Boogie with players like Francisco Garcia, Carl Landry, Chuck Hayes and Jimmer Fredette. This franchise that traded the best team-mate that Boogie has had in Isaiah Thomas for Alex Oriakhi. I’ll give you a minute to google who that is. This franchise that fired the one coach that Boogie got along while he had the BEST record of any coach who had coached him in Sacramento. Fun fact, he still has the best record of any coach to coach Boogie in the NBA. I could keep going but you get the point.
If you were to go check the twitter feed of nearly any Kings fan (not all of them. There are some level-headed Sac fans out there) right now, you would see the words ‘good riddance’ and ‘cancer’ thrown around. Sure, Boogie has maturity problems, this is undeniable. But to blame the misfortunes of an ill-run franchise on their best player since Chris Webber is straight up asinine. Maybe it’s denial? Like, when your ex starts dating someone way better looking than you so you say “they weren’t that great anyway. I’m way better off alone.” Sacramento is the bitter ex of Boogie.
Let’s look back at some of the drafting decisions of the Kings front office since Boogie came around before we blame everything on DeMarcus. In 2010, Sacramento got it right, drafting Cousins 5th overall. Although, they also drafted 2017 all-star snub Hassan Whiteside in the second round and waived him in 2012 after keeping him in the D-League (or is that G-League) most of his time there.
In 2011, the Kings had the 7th overall pick and they chose Bismack Biyombo, who they promptly traded away for Jimmer Fredette and John Salmons. Kemba Walker was selected two picks later. Klay Thompson two picks after that. Kawhi Leonard four picks after that and Jimmy Butler 15 picks after that (to be fair, a lot of teams whiffed on Butler.) But the Kings did well in the second round, getting two-time all star Isaiah Thomas with the last pick in the draft…buuuuut they sent him to Phoenix for nothing…awkward.
In 2012, they picked 5th again and selected PF Thomas Robinson (who they traded halfway through the season for a not-yet good Patrick Patterson and a still-not-good Cole Aldrich.) Selected straight after Robinson was just some guy from Weber State known as Damian Lillard! Andre Drummond was taken three picks after Lillard as well.
Would 2013 be the year that Sacramento finally got it right? Spoiler alert…nope! They had the 7th overall pick again and chose Ben McLemore. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (8th), C.J. McCollum (10th), Steven Adams (12th), Giannis Antetokounmpo (15th) and Rudy Gobert (27th) were all picked later than McLemore.
The 2014 draft was pretty weak. The Kings took Nik Stauskas 8th overall. Five picks later was two-time slam dunk champ Zach Lavine. I’ll give the Kings a pass here as there was straight garbage in this draft.
The Kings picked 6th in 2015 and went with athletic big man Willie Cauley-Stein. A high pick but he had potential. But there were a couple of players later at a position of more urgent need in Justise Winslow and Devin Booker (10th and 13th respectively) and also another athletic big was taken 11th overall in Myles Turner.
They get a pass in 2016 as well as the draft was very top-heavy. But the Kings still managed to confuse some people as they drafted Marquese Chriss, an athletic big who could learn from Boogie and they traded him for a guy who said he won’t come to the NBA yet (Bogdan Bogdanovic) and a less-talented player of the same position (Skal Labissiere).
That was just the draft. I didn’t even go into detail on any of the trades, free agent signings or coaching decisions they have made since Boogie came along. Here is a piece of advice for any Kings fans that wanna shit on Cousins on his way out. Instead of acting like the jealous ex that anyone from the outside can see is being totally unreasonable, how about you just agree to an amicable split and appreciate the good times. Because the front office aren’t going to miraculously not be morons now that Boogie is gone.