DeMarcus Cousins Must Grow Up

This NBA season will be crucial to the development and maturation of DeMarcus Cousins’ attitude towards the Sacramento Kings and his teammates.

When it comes to DeMarcus Cousins, there is no question that he is one of the best big men in the game, if not the top center in the NBA.

He is an absolute force inside, where he effortlessly switches gears between powering through the interior D with his strength, and scorching them with his soft jump shot.

The fact that he also worked in a reliable three-point shot to his game last season makes him all the more dangerous, where he can effectively space the floor out for his teammates as well.

With that said, the team he plays for, the Sacramento Kings, remains an absolute train wreck. Not much has made sense during the reign of owner Vivek Ranadive and general manager Vlade Divac.

We saw that especially this past summer when they took three centers in the NBA Draft, when they already have Cousins and Willie Cauley-Stein occupying the 4 and 5 spots.

Cousins was obviously not a fan of his front office during this time, posting this controversial tweet while the draft was taking place:

https://cdn.fansided.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/229/files/2016/06/Screen-Shot-2016-06-23-at-6.17.12-PM.jpg

While it is understandable that Cousins is not pleased with the decisions of Ranadive and Divac, this tweet only further proved how immature he is. Something like this should be handled behind closed doors between Cousins and the front office – not online.

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And sure, athletes post stupid stuff on social media occasionally, but Cousins has had plenty of instances of poor behavior during his time in the NBA.

Sure, he definitely deserves better. The Kings have done an awful job surrounding him with capable talent in the six seasons he has been with the team.

But Cousins isn’t making things better with how he handles adversity. To put it simply, he needs to become a better leader as he enters the prime years of his NBA career.

We frequently see Cousins sporting his usual annoyed face whenever things don’t go his way. If a teammate makes a mistake, he’s the first to let them know about it.

Instead of being an encouraging presence who knows when to offer healthy, constructive criticism, he yells at his guys and isn’t shy about demonstrating his total disgust for their inability to never make mistakes on the floor:

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He also openly clashed with his former head coach

George Karl

, obviously frustrated that the team parted ways with Mike Malone, a coach he actually liked playing under.

In many ways, his complaints are validated. But it’s how he’s choosing to behave which is the problem.

If he wants to fix these problems, he either has to accept his spot as the leader of this team and be a more supportive teammate, or be respectful in what demands he makes from ownership.

At this stage of his career, Cousins has to grow up and become someone that guys actually want to play with for a long time. After all, he’s technically a veteran in this league, even if he’s still only in his mid-20s.

Hopefully his time with Team USA in the Rio Olympics this summer will show him what it takes to be a winner.

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He is already a top-10 player in the league who will only get better, but now he must make great strides in how he conducts himself both on and off the court if the Kings ever want to be relevant in this decade.

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