Cousins: Kings trading me was 'a coward move'

DeMarcus Cousins is embracing his new NBA home - and, he hopes, a more functional basketball organization - but he's still feeling stung by the way the Sacramento Kings dealt him this week, with little warning and after repeatedly assuring him they would not do so.

Cousins says Kings general manager Vlade Divac told him as much, to his face, just a week before trading him to the New Orleans Pelicans for pennies on the dollar, and that owner Vivek Ranadive was asking him about potential personnel moves just a couple days before consummating the deal.

"The sick part about it is that Vlade came in my house with my agent," Cousins told The Undefeated's Marc J. Spears after losing his Pelicans debut Thursday night. "We sat in my theater and just talked. That was maybe three weeks ago. We sat there and (he) told me what moves he wanted to make. All of that. I just didn't understand.

"I got a text from the owner right before I went to All-Star. He was asking me about a player, how I felt about him and making a move. The owner! When it happened, I was just in shock. I didn't understand."

In the wake of the trade-deadline fiasco, Cousins has no interest in talking to either Divac or Ranadive.

"For what? It was a coward move, so I'm pretty sure I will get a coward response," he told Spears. "For what? And I've seen this happen before. I've been there through all same types … I was there with (coach) Mike Malone's (firing). I've seen how they operate. I know what kind of answer I will get anyway. So, what is the point?"

Instead, Cousins is looking forward, focusing on his new start in New Orleans.

"Whatever the system is, I'm dialed in," he said. "I'm all in. I'm not here to waste time. I'm not."

More so than being misled and being wrenched from a basketball environment in which he'd grown comfortable, Cousins is disappointed at having his connection to the city of Sacramento abruptly severed.

"It's bigger than basketball. It's bigger than the Kings organization," he said. "The relationships I built out there, I'm more hurt by that. Being away from those relationships and the community, I'm more hurt by that because of the dishonesty and all that s--- with the organization."