Part I: The problem with DeMarcus Cousins

A white towel clings like Saran Wrap to DeMarcus Cousins' nearly 300-pound body as he makes his way from the shower into the Kings' locker room. It's an hour after the final buzzer, and most of his teammates have long vacated the arc of wood-paneled lockers. Cousins' stall is at the end; beside it, a pyramidal mass of reporters and videographers huddles in wait.

On this December night, the Kings trounced the Lakers 116-92, with Cousins' 16-point third quarter tilting the game in Sacramento's favor. But whatever pride he's taken from the performance -- what it says about the body of work he's assembled in his seventh season, what it portends for the Kings as they prepare to hit the road just two games out of the playoffs -- all of that is now secondary. Among the reporters stands Sacramento Bee columnist Andy Furillo -- leather jacket, baseball cap atop strawberry hair, rimless glasses. Before Cousins even finishes toweling off, he engages Furillo, the author of an opinion piece lambasting Cousins' choice of New York City nightlife venues the prior week -- a piece that cites an earlier incident at a Tampa club in which Cousins' brother, Jaleel, was tased and arrested.

The confrontation begins. Cousins wants to know whether Furillo knows Jaleel. He doesn't. Then why would Furillo mention him in the column? Furillo replies that the altercation was relevant. Moreover, there's a published video that captures it, and DeMarcus was there. Cousins suggests Furillo is simply out to criticize him. Then it escalates.

"You're a coward," Cousins says. "You're a f---ing coward. You're a coward."

"Why would you say that?" Furillo answers.

"Because you are."

"Bulls---."

Meanwhile, less than 3 feet away, Kings guard Garrett Temple stands, offering his impressions of Cousins' extraordinary season. "His skill set offensively is something I've never seen before," Temple says, "being able to score from the perimeter the way he can, obviously in the post, the way he can shoot the ball, his touch, his understanding of the game. He can pass; he can do a combination of things I've never seen a center do, or a power forward, honestly. He ..." Temple's testimonial trails off as he strains to hear what's simmering behind him -- where Cousins now towers over Furillo -- before he stops talking and looks over his shoulder.

"You sit here hiding behind a f---ing computer screen," Cousins is saying, "talking s---, articles and all this other s---."

"I am not hiding."

"You are a f---ing coward."

"I am not a coward."

A lot can happen in a 3-foot radius, and this one contains multitudes. It's a life-size diorama of the Enigma of the Kings, who employ, in Cousins, one of the game's top talents -- and its most temperamental. And so it is that Temple finally decides to step between Cousins and Furillo, placing a hand gently on Cousins' torso.

"You ever talk about my f---ing brother again, we are going to have some real f---ing issues," Cousins says. "Don't ever mention my brother again. You don't know my f---ing brother." And then, as Cousins retreats to his locker, Temple, sensing the storm has passed, returns to the discussion of his teammate's basketball genius, opening his mouth to speak ... just as Cousins confronts Furillo again. "You can say whatever the f--- you want to say about me, but don't mention my motherf---ing family."

To Cousins, the piece in question is a cheap shot, yet another in a long procession of takedowns about his work ethic, his weight, his judgment, his attitude. And in the ensuing days, after the Bee's executive editor defends Furillo by suggesting that he "held his ground" against Cousins because the veteran journalist had experience being shot at by rioters in Los Angeles, Cousins will be blown away by the connotations. Who am I in these metaphors, exactly?

But back in the moment, when asked what the explosion he just helped defuse says about Cousins, Temple sighs. "I've only been here for two months, so I really don't know that much," he says. "But I'm trying to figure it out. He's a very emotional guy. That's one thing I've realized."

If Temple is struggling to figure out Cousins, he's hardly alone in the pursuit. There's a tantalizing question about the Kings' franchise star, and its answer might well determine his future: Is Cousins' madness at the heart of the Kings' dysfunction -- or is the dysfunction of the Kings driving Cousins mad? To answer it requires a return to 2014. It was then, sources say, that so much went wrong.

IT'S AN AFTERNOON in early 2014, midway through the season, and Mike Malone, first-year coach of the Kings, is conducting a particularly brutal practice. Malone was hired by the Kings the previous June, and Cousins has experienced practices like this before. "Mike has his days," Cousins says. "You've seen him on the sidelines, veins popping out of his head ... overly frustrated, mad at the world. This was one of those days."

Cousins is having one of those days too, dead tired from what seems to have been an almost intentionally sadistic practice. And when Malone yells at the team to line up to run sprints, Cousins turns defiant: "F--- this, man. I'm not running!"

And then, as Cousins recalls, "every bit of 5-9 Mike Malone comes up to me and says, 'Motherf---er, you're going to run or you're going to get the f--- out of my practice, you big p---y!' And I say, 'I ain't running, Mike!'"

Malone promptly shows Cousins the door.

Nearly three years later, Cousins shares the story with the affection you'd expect from a retired player reminiscing about his youthful fury. He's neither proud nor embarrassed. But it's an incident he cites as evidence that there can be accountability and friction in the NBA, that a player can be both insubordinate and not a terrible person, that a coach can be tough -- even hysterical -- but fair.

Cousins, at the time, was a 23-point, 12-rebound center with a reputation for petulance, playing, perhaps not coincidentally, for his third coach in four seasons. Malone, though, appeared to have located Cousins' escape key. "There were days where we got into it, but I think at the end of the day, he always knew that I cared about him and I loved him," Malone says. "It was never personal. Once you earn his trust, he'll go to war for you. I think pretty early in our relationship I earned his trust."

Trust. Virtually everyone who's had an association with Cousins -- coaches past and present, teammates, Kings execs, his agents, journalists, even nonprofit directors -- calls that the key to unlocking the riddle. Being a member of Cousins' "trust circle," in the words of a former Kings assistant, is the great Rorschach test that determines how you see Cousins -- as a manifold, deeply emotional, bighearted man full of contradictions or a volatile, needlessly aggressive bully who is accountable to no one or nothing -- not even his immeasurable talent.

Malone, now the coach of the Nuggets, declares himself squarely in the first camp. "I think he's very coachable, and I loved my time with him," Malone says. "I always wonder what might have happened."

What actually happened was this: In fall 2014, the Kings started the season 9-6, with Cousins playing the best basketball of his life -- tallying career highs in points and rebounds and a phenomenal net rating of plus-14 for the month of November. For the first time since Cousins was drafted, Malone and his staff were beginning to believe that a sense of order had been established. Cousins still required maintenance, but the cues were now mutually recognized. Malone was a red-assed tyrant, but Cousins says he loved how Malone's anger was always situational, never personal. "Mike was real," Cousins says. "Mike held everyone accountable, most of all himself. That's all that matters. That's all it's about."

If the Kings were enjoying a newfound sense of progress and morale, though, word of that apparently never filtered up the chain of command to majority owner Vivek Ranadive, who among other desires was determined to see his team play at a faster pace. (Worth noting: It was also during this time that Ranadive wanted Sacramento to experiment with playing 4-on-5 defense, leaving one King on the other end to cherry-pick for baskets.) According to sources, ownership felt Malone was being obstinate about his conviction that the Kings needed to adopt a style more oriented to the half court.

Then in late November, Cousins fell victim to viral meningitis, which coincided with the team's losing eight of 10 games. In mid-December, sources say, Cousins was on his way to a "Santa Cuz" gift giveaway at a Wal-Mart near Sleep Train Arena when he was asked to drop by the executive offices. The team wanted him to discuss an urgent matter with Ranadive and the Kings' GM at the time, Pete D'Alessandro. Those with knowledge of the conversation say Cousins was told by Ranadive that the Kings would win substantially more games with assistant coach Tyrone Corbin at the helm. Cousins replied by asking the owner, in somewhat colorful profanity, if he had taken leave of his sanity. When he then asked the brain trust about the timetable for its verdict on Malone, he was told the decision had already been made. Sources say Cousins then responded by asking why he'd been diverted from a charity event for a matter that had clearly been resolved without his input.

IT'S JANUARY 2015, a few weeks after Malone's firing, and new coach Corbin is presiding over a film session. The team has fallen off a cliff in recent games, and Corbin has cued up a selection of video clips of the team's defensive errors. Much of Corbin's attention is focused on the Kings' porous half-court defense, and Cousins is receiving heavy billing. After a few short minutes, Cousins jumps up.

"Why don't we play film of all of this motherf---er's mistakes?" Cousins shouts to the room, according to a then-teammate, pointing at Corbin. Corbin tries to explain that there's no intent to single out any one player's mistakes. Their recent performances, he says, have been teamwide failures. But Cousins is inconsolable. "Show 'em!"

Teammates don't intervene. Corbin again urges Cousins to calm down. Cousins instead walks out of the film room and doesn't return. When asked about the episode nearly two years later, Cousins confirms it -- as well as his regular insubordination toward Corbin in practices, huddles and meetings.

"I feel bad for Ty Corbin," Cousins says today about the interim coach who would compile a 7-21 record before being replaced. "We all knew the situation he was put in. That was just a frustrating period for everyone, to start the season the way we did. We finally were on the right path. I truly believe we would have been a playoff team. I was in a bad place. It was never an issue between me and Ty Corbin. He's a great guy who was put in the worst situation possible -- the worst."

Just before the All-Star break, the team hired George Karl, a basketball lifer who'd won 1,131 games before arriving in Sacramento. Karl's high-octane, read-and-react offense was well-suited to the present-day NBA. But he was also one of the most cantankerous characters in the game, one who routinely, and publicly, clashed with his biggest stars. If ever there was a coach who had the potential to exacerbate Cousins' trust issues, it was Karl. To compound problems, sources say, Cousins was assured by management that Karl wouldn't be hired, despite rumors to the contrary.

For the next 14 months, Karl and Cousins staged public warfare. According to multiple sources who played for and served on the staff of the 2015-16 Kings team, Karl regarded Cousins as the most disrespectful person he'd ever encountered in basketball. He was bewildered by the Kings' unwillingness to lead a coordinated front to discipline him. To Karl, Cousins' behavior was sucking the franchise's entire reserve of energy -- affecting the performance of the entire roster.

"Our coach came to me last season," says Kings GM Vlade Divac, "and we had some issues [with Cousins], and he said, 'Why don't you just fix it? You do this. Fine him.' You can't just fine any guy. That's the easy way. You talk to the kid first. You give him a chance to do the right thing. Second phase is fine them as a warning. First time, you talk."

Exacerbating the situation -- and further proving the depths of the Kings' dysfunction: In February 2016, Divac called Cousins in Philadelphia, where the Kings were on an extended road trip. The organization, Cousins was told, was going to fire Karl that day. Karl ultimately would not be fired until April 14, more than two months later.

Karl, under contractual obligation to not disclose any information about the workings of the team, declined to discuss the Kings for this story. Cousins likewise declined to address his relationship with Karl, offering only, "I wish George the best." But sources with knowledge of Cousins' thinking say there was very little the All-Star liked about Karl and his approach, from how Karl promoted his candidacy for the job in the media to his insistence that the modern game has no place for a player with Cousins' size and skills. (Indeed, Karl saw Cousins as the quintessential plodding half-court player who didn't conform to a more improvisational game in which the element of surprise can overwhelm defenses, a template that had worked for him in Denver.) And while Karl might have felt Cousins' behavior was unprecedented, Cousins couldn't recall a precedent for a sitting NBA coach campaigning through the media to trade a team's most productive player, as Karl famously did in June 2015. Above all, unlike Malone -- and now Dave Joerger, hired last spring to replace Karl -- criticism of Cousins by Karl seemed to be personal, less about the work and more about mind games.

"In a way, they deserved each other," a Kings source says. "Unfortunately the rest of us didn't."

IN A CONFERENCE room inside the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Las Vegas in October, a few weeks before this season, referee Bennett Salvatore is briefing the Kings on the NBA's points of emphasis with regard to officiating. It's an annual rite for each of the 30 teams, and Salvatore opens the session by letting the players in attendance know that game officials appreciate an open line of communication. Refs care about getting the calls right, he says. If you have concerns, we want to hear them.

"This is bulls---!" Cousins yells at Salvatore. "They don't want to listen!"

"Take a deep breath!"

"No, you take a deep breath!"

A source who attended the session says 14-year veteran Matt Barnes has been the teammate this season most likely to talk Cousins down from the ledge -- but today, in this conference room, nobody intervenes. This one is just too loaded.

Of all the issues that have plagued Cousins over his career, his relationship with officials is among the most exasperating -- to Cousins, to his coaches, to the NBA. Since he entered the league in 2010, Cousins has amassed 107 technical fouls, 24 more than Russell Westbrook, who ranks second. Last year Cousins was the only player suspended for eclipsing the threshold of 16 technicals in a season.

From Cousins' perspective, it goes like this: In the captains' circle, prior to opening tip, officials tell players that if there are any questions during the game, addressed in an appropriate manner, officials are happy to answer them. "First quarter, I come up to a ref," Cousins says. "He says, 'I don't want to talk.' You call their name and they ignore you. Their issue is, 'You have to respect us.' My whole issue is, 'You guys feel like you're above us.'"

League executives say they have pleaded with Cousins in meetings and over the phone, but each technical seems to enhance his martyrdom. Compounding Cousins' frustration is his perception that the more he puts up superstar production, the less he's officiated like a superstar.

"If you want to be respected, you have to respect us, regardless of which team is playing, which superstar is on the floor and which superstar is not on the floor," Cousins says after a game in December. "The top players in the league scream at the referees. I don't have to explain, because you see it. Then, myself, tonight I'm just standing there and I get a tech. It's not an equal balance. Of course, I have my personal struggles with the referees. I know that."

FOR THE SACRAMENTO front office, taking inventory of basketball assets naturally starts with the All-Star center, who is under contract through the 2017-18 season. When asked to characterize the Kings' plan -- be it keeping the roster intact to make a run for the postseason, blowing up the roster with the exception of Cousins, blowing up the roster starting with Cousins -- Divac and assistant GM Ken Catanella demur at anything definitive. "We're in the information-gathering stage," Catanella says about the general direction in Sacramento. "Right now it's about getting the machine up and working." Still, sources with intimate knowledge of the Kings say Ranadive won't entertain the prospect of dealing Cousins.

But an asset as valuable as Cousins requires constant due diligence by NBA front offices. One such team meets from time to time to view game film of Cousins, and those watching are tantalized by what they see -- the agility combined with force, the soft touch, the capacity to either bully or dance around any profile of defender, big or small. Yet each time they evaluate whether it's worth mobilizing the organization's assets to make a push to acquire Cousins, they return to the same dilemma.

When this front office breaks down a Cousins game, it invariably finds half a dozen possessions per game when he sabotages the Kings. Sometimes it's not getting back on defense because he has overdramatized a fall on a drive. Sometimes it's an ill-advised shot early in the possession whose only explanation is acting out against a noncall or an incorrect call. Sometimes it's a missed opportunity for a teammate because Cousins has clearly broken off a play.

This team needs no further persuasion on Cousins' skill set. It's reasonably assured he's a good-hearted person who has manageable behavioral issues that fall within the bounds of the normal human experience. But it's not sure it wants to pay the Cousins tax -- that 6 or 7 percent of possessions that not only take a team out of its offensive or defensive rhythm but whose negative outcomes can crush its collective spirit.

One general manager says he wakes up every day hoping one of his rivals trades for Cousins. Another says "No f---ing way" when asked whether he'd ever consider dealing for him.

The question, at least for now, is no more than a hypothetical, as it was reported on Jan. 10 that Cousins intends to sign an extension with the Kings for in excess of $200 million. But a teammate of Cousins' last season believes it remains the fundamental problem for any team on which he's the featured talent. Every day at work in Sacramento -- every practice, every play, every film session, every huddle -- has the potential to be a collective exercise in managing Cousins' emotional fiber, and the NBA season is simply too taxing for a team to take that on. "Nobody calls him out," the former teammate says. "It's an ongoing thing. Nobody holds him accountable, and nobody ever has. Sometimes we looked around when he was going at it, and everyone was thinking, Who's going to stop this?"

By the account of this player, who's still close to several people on the team, along with the account of virtually every other source who spoke about him, Cousins has improved in this regard this season, even pricing in the high-profile incidents. "I'm not saying [Cousins] is perfect," says a teammate who requested anonymity. "But none of that stuff you heard about with George happens this year."

And then there exists one more possibility -- that none of us knows the real DeMarcus Cousins at all. And if there's evidence for that notion, it resides in the testimonials from those in the Kings' locker room and front office about the constant but quiet nature of Cousins' charity. One Kings exec notes that the PR department has tried on more than one occasion to get Cousins to be more vocal about his good deeds in the community. Case in point: In fall 2015, Cousins tried to keep quiet the news that he covered the funeral expenses for a slain local high schooler -- but word of the donation was leaked by a city councilman who felt Cousins should be recognized.

"That act was not done in any braggadocious way and wasn't done with any press release," says Derrell Roberts, who runs Roberts Family Development Center, where he says Cousins is "quietly" supportive. "You can tell the difference between the person whose PR person sends you a press note or suggests how you might want to orchestrate the event. That's not DeMarcus."

Or consider the awkward moment at the conclusion of the news conference when Cousins signed his contract extension in 2013. The event had appeared to be wrapping up. Ranadive and D'Alessandro, on either side of Cousins at the dais, had risen from their seats. But just then a Kings public relations rep approached and whispered something to Cousins. Ranadive sat back down. And Cousins, now more than 13 minutes into the news conference, sheepishly announced that he was donating $1 million over the course of the contract to family and community organizations in Sacramento -- something he'd intentionally omitted in his initial statement.

When told, years later, that it's standard operating procedure for agencies and teams to send out press releases and take a bow when they perform charitable acts, Cousins responds, "It just shows you how fake this f---ing league is. Everything is about, 'How can I make myself look good?' This isn't a pure-hearted league, and there aren't a lot of pure-hearted guys. I wasn't raised that way. My mom would kick my ass if I helped someone across the street and said [handing over his phone], 'Here, record this.'"

FOR EVERY RECENT teammate who has observed Cousins throwing outlandish tantrums, there is another teammate who will share a kind gesture Cousins made toward that player's mother. For every coach who believes that Cousins is a victim of Sacramento's circumstance, there's another coach who says he'd fight his general manager on pay-per-view if Cousins ever landed in his locker room.

This much everyone agrees on: DeMarcus Cousins is the best big man alive with regard to raw talent. And there's a collective acknowledgment that this team would be nowhere without Cousins' dominance this season. Through the team's first 40 games, he was 10th among all NBA players in ESPN's real plus-minus. His player efficiency rating ranked eighth in the NBA. For such production, there are certain deficiencies a team can tolerate.

"You put him in the right type of environment, a winning environment in the right organization, he would flourish without a doubt," Olympic teammate DeMar DeRozan says. "Even in the position he's in now, he hasn't been to the playoffs, but he's still the best big man in the league. Sometimes the other chips just don't fall into place for you to take off when you want to take off. I think he's going to get to that point once he gets in the right situation."

There's also now a body of evidence that demonstrates the key to transforming that talent into results is simple trust. Establish trust, the thinking goes, and the necessary ingredients for success -- accountability, self-control, being a quality teammate -- will follow. And so the Kings have entrusted Dave Joerger, their sixth coach in the past six seasons, to do just that.

Joerger says his dominant message to Cousins has been "next play." As the coach explains, "It just means, 'I've shifted my focus from whatever it was that upset me.' Go onto the next one, or a sequence of plays, 6-0 run, 8-2 run. They happen. You don't get calls. Ball doesn't come your way for a little bit. Whatever it is, to just quickly focus onto the next thing."

For his part, when asked whether Joerger's less aggressive approach works for him, Cousins chuckles at any hint that the coach handles him with kid gloves. "Roll your big ass down in the paint!" Cousins bellows, imitating Joerger. "What I respect about him is it's always between the lines. Nothing on the outside, nothing about what was said two days ago. There's no power trips -- it's basketball. That's it. How can there ever be some type of disagreement when it's something he loves and I love. How can you disagree? It's basketball."

On a drive home after a Sacramento win, two weeks following the incident with Furillo, Joerger is listening to a replay of Cousins being interviewed on the Kings' postgame radio show. Cousins is unemotional, witty, takes pride in the things the team performed well and ownership for areas of needed improvement. This is standard NBA media stuff for any superstar, but in a month of technicals and altercations, it is notable.

The next day, Joerger texts Cousins to tell him he's proud of the interview, that he sounded great. The coach tells his superstar that he'll get zero kudos for that interview, or for any of the routine progress a player makes over the long course of a season when nobody is watching. But Joerger wants Cousins to know that he's listening -- that he is always listening, even when the rest of the world is gawking.

"When he f---s up or even appears to f--- up, it goes viral," Joerger says. "So I wanted him to know I was proud."