Cousins on relationship with Karl: 'We're getting better every day'

DeMarcus Cousins knows what people say about the Sacramento Kings.

He knows they're considered a sideshow, that they aren't taken seriously, whether because of their repeated ownership crises or their communication failures or their maligned front-office moves or the perpetual motion of their coaching carousel or their decade-long playoff drought or all of the above.

"People love negativity," Cousins told Bleacher Report's Kevin Ding on Tuesday. "They feed off of that. They'd much rather see that than something positive happen."

But as he prepares for his sixth season with the Kings, the only NBA franchise he's ever known, Cousins - who hasn't exactly been immune to the negativity himself in the past - is trying to change the narrative.

"We're going to make things happen," he said. "We're going to make something positive happen."

Cousins, who made his first All-Star team and All-NBA team last season, understands that much of the responsibility for making positive things happen will fall on his own shoulders. That means, perhaps first and foremost, that he'll need to figure out how to coexist with head coach George Karl, with whom he's had a pretty rocky offseason.

"Things are a lot better," he said Tuesday. "We're on the right path. We're trying to understand each other better. That's the biggest thing. We're trying to make it work."

Cousins also said his issues with Karl got blown out of proportion, and were never quite as bad as what was often reported.

"There were some things we had to iron out, but at the same time, I wouldn't make it as big as it came out to be," Cousins said. "It was a lot of people who didn't know what the hell they were talking about. Me and him are on the same page. We're working on our relationship. We're getting better every day. And that's all that matters."