Can DeMarcus Cousins and his fiery coach coexist?

Sam Amick | USA TODAY Sports

When Michael Malone and DeMarcus Cousins had a warm embrace at Las Vegas summer league, the new Sacramento Kings coach and his centerpiece center hamming it up at the end of the team's bench for all to see, anyone who was aware of the tension-filled context took notice.

It was the sort of moment they can only hope to still be having by the time the regular season rolls around.

While the Kings' recent sale, front-office makeover and coaching change mean there's a clean slate for all involved, Cousins' situation looms large as they attempt to forge a new future. After three seasons in which the mercurial big man has shown an ability to both dominate the opponent and destroy his own team's chemistry as the Kings has gone a combined 74-156, he wants a maximum contract extension before the Oct. 31 deadline, or else.

Or else what, exactly, remains to be seen. The standard power play script in the NBA would seem to suggest a possible trade demand on the horizon, but the mere threat of Cousins being unhappy because of his contract, or to have the powerful leverage that inherently comes with being a max player, is more than enough for the Kings to consider the pros and cons of their options. He is, by almost all accounts, a player who will be given a max deal by someone by the time his rookie contract expires next summer.

The thinking from Cousins' camp is that there's no risk in resolving this issue now as opposed to later because his market value, as they see it, has already been set and the wrong message will be sent by making him wait for restricted free agency next summer. If the situation goes south for Cousins and the Kings in Sacramento, in their view, there will be no shortage of suitors to whom they could trade him. The Kings, meanwhile, are well aware that they have plenty of time to deliberate the decision but continue to send signs that they're willing to gamble on the big man for the long term sooner rather than later.

DeMarcus Cousins: 'I do want to be a King' Sacramento center DeMarcus Cousins talks about his future with the Kings and recent changes made by the team's new management after his Team USA practice in Las Vegas.

Cousins — who had gone from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to visit some of his future teammates and watched the action with Malone while assistant Chris Jent coached the team — said all the right things at Team USA minicamp this week. He indicated that he wants to remain with the Kings, and admitted that he needs to be more aware of how his aggressive demeanor causes a ripple effect among his teammates and coaches. But in the wake of Cousins' soured relationships with former Kings coaches Paul Westphal and Keith Smart, the dynamic with Malone will be as big a factor as any when it comes to their ability to build something in Sacramento.

Malone might be a first-time head coach, but he has earned tremendous respect around the league for his ability to improve teams defensively in Cleveland, New Orleans and Golden State while often acting as more of an associate head coach than he did a lead assistant. Yet like Cousins, he is also known as a fiery type, a coach who suffers no fools and is hardly afraid of the sort of confrontations that Cousins has so often been a part of in his short career.

While in Las Vegas, Malone spoke with USA TODAY Sports about the complex Cousins situation that he is now a part of and how he plans to make this a positive partnership:

Q. So I heard you and new general manager Pete D'Alessandro visited DeMarcus and his family in Alabama at home in early July. What was the back story there?

A. Oh, it was an opportunity for me to have face time and one-on-one time with he and his family. As you start any relationship, you have to get to know the other person. I just wanted him to get to know who I am, and I wanted to get a chance to get to know who he is, and his family, because he's not going to trust me, nor anybody, he's not going to just blindly trust you. So it's going to have to be something that we work towards, and I think we're definitely working towards that.

But I wanted to go down there to show him that he means a lot to the team. If we're going to do anything special, it's going to start with him, and that's my challenge to DeMarcus is that I want him to be the leader. Being a leader is hard ... because you have to be willing to do the right thing every day. That's my challenge to him. If he buys in and embraces what we're about, then everybody else will fall in line because he's our guy. So I wanted to go up to him on the bench because it meant so much that he was here, to see his teammates and the two young rookies. It was a great, special moment for us. But that was just the beginning of many special moments.

Q. For you, how much more challenging is your first head-coaching job when you're walking into a situation like this with Cousins?

A. You know, I'll be honest: We have a great general manager in Pete D'Alessandro, and I'm going to let Pete handle all those things between DeMarcus' agent and all the contract stuff. I'm a coach, and I'm going to coach DeMarcus, and I'm not going to get caught up in all that. I told DeMarcus that. I said, "I'm not the GM. I don't handle any of that stuff. I'm your coach, and I look forward to working with you. I look forward to getting the best out of you. I know I can help you, and DeMarcus, you can help me. This is a partnership here." I'm excited that he came up here.

Q. How do you see it working with your personalities? You and I both know what people have been saying, that you're known as a tough, tough coach and it's only a matter of time before you guys battle. He battled with (Westphal and Smart), and here you come. How do you see that?

A. I can't go into it with any preconceived notions. That wouldn't be fair to DeMarcus. But I am who I am. I will coach the way I coach. I'm not going to try to be something that I'm not. Now if that means that we get into it one day, that may happen, that may happen with anybody on our roster. That may happen with (No. 7 overall draft pick) Ben McLemore, but it's only going to be for that player's best interest and the team's best interests. It's never going to be a personal nature.

Obviously some people have said coming into this, "Oh, I'm not a good coach for DeMarcus Cousins." And I don't buy that, and I told him that. I said, "People told you that, and I don't think that's fair and I don't think that's right." Like you were saying, you've heard, "Oh, Malone is this kind of a coach." It's always personalities — how is that going to fit with DeMarcus? I'm going to coach him, and try to bring out the best in him. Whatever that means and how each day goes, we'll see how it plays out. But so far, it's very early, we haven't had any games or practices yet, but I know I'm inheriting one of the best big men in the NBA. That's the bottom line. Not many guys get to inherit a team that has a center or big man that has the talent level that DeMarcus Cousins has. It's up to me to try and harness all of that and try to get the best out of him — not just for him, but more importantly for our team.

He wants to win. The one thing I love about DeMarcus is — he told me two things in the first conversation we had. He said , "Coach, I hate to lose. And people say that I'm not coachable, but I am." I said, "Well DeMarcus, right away we have something in common, because I hate to lose too. I'm very competitive. And you hate to lose, and you're very competitive. Well you know what? Let's not lose. And when we do, let's challenge each other to get better." So I'm looking forward to it. It really meant a lot spending that day with his family down there.

Q. Were you guys in and out in one day?

A. Yeah, and that was important to do because at the end of the day I'm the head coach and he's a player, and we have to start building a relationship. And we have. And the fact that we had the moment at the end of the game (in Las Vegas) was great, and hopefully there will be more of those.

Q. All this other stuff aside, where are you putting the expectation bar for him and the team and what do you see happening this year?

A. I want us to be as good as we can be. I don't have a number (record-wise) on that. I don't want to undersell or oversell, but my biggest thing this year is going to be — and I want to win as many games as possible, obviously — but the biggest things to me are changing the culture, from having that losing mentality, that selfish mentality, getting away from that; changing our culture, becoming a team that defends, having a defensive identity. If we're going to do anything special, it's going to start on that end of the floor. And then I want to have a chance to develop all the players on our roster, to get them better. Those are the most important things in Year One. Now we've added (point guard) Greivis (Vasquez via trade with New Orleans), we've added Luc (Mbah a Moute via trade with Milwaukee), we've added (forward) Carl Landry (via free agency), we've added Ben, we added Ray (McCallum Jr. out of Detroit in the second round) to the guys who are coming back, so we've done some good things with the roster. But (the goals are) a change of culture, and to become a team that defends on a nightly basis and develop all players and personnel on our roster.