Great Story On Boogie

DeMarcus Cousins: Peeling back the layers, Kings big man is laid back and loveable

PUBLISHED 19 hours and 23 minutes ago

Alejandro Danois
Sporting News

The glistening black Range Rover with California plates weaves precisely from main road to side road to back road, its headlights illuminating the path cutting through the tall trees covered with long, flowing moss. On a humid early December evening in southern Alabama’s Gulf Coast region, the understated luxury SUV is carefully navigating the streets through a drizzling fog as if the person behind the wheel is driving Miss Daisy rather than a 6-foot-11 man-child who possesses the potential to re-define the center/power forward skill set in the NBA.

Stepping outside the vehicle, 21-year-old DeMarcus Cousins saunters into an empty gymnasium for his final workout, two days before heading to Sacramento for the Kings’ abbreviated training camp and the start of the lockout shortened season.

If you didn’t know him, the serious look on his face and sharp glare of his eyes, accentuated by furrowed eyebrows, would suggest that he’s in a foul mood, irritable, upset and distant. That’s the convenient caricature that’s been painted of him and recycled ad nauseum since his days as an Alabama prep star, his mercurial one-and-done campaign at the University of Kentucky and currently during his second season in the NBA.

It’s a portrait that gained more texture earlier this season when he was suspended for a game after a yelling match with former Sacramento coach Paul Westphal, when Cousins supposedly demanded to be traded.

But if you knew truly knew Cousins, you’d know that looks can be deceiving.

SANCTUARY IN SWEAT

Because here in Alabama, walking into the sanctuary of the gym for an evening workout with his equally massive 18 year-old brother Jaleel, along with his personal trainer and mentor Keith Williams, DeMarcus is the anti-Cousins, the person that never seems to be mentioned in news headlines: laid back, serene, playful, thoughtful, lovable, silly and hilarious.

You see, to comprehend who DeMarcus Cousins is, you have to go to the source and see him in his true element, amongst the people he trusts. You have to peel back the layers of everything you think you know about the young man and take a trip, not only to his Alabama home, but also back in time.

As a member of a large extended family, DeMarcus was a playfully mischievous bundle of energy as a child. Reared in a humble home in a blue collar pocket in the city of Mobile that may have been small in physical dimension, the love and support inside was immeasurable.

“I come from a family of educators,” says Cousins’ mother Monique, a tall, radiant woman with smooth caramel skin who emanates an inner strength that belies her soft, soothing voice. The melodic, comforting tone of her words fall out of her mouth in a syrupy, pronounced southern drawl that make one feel immediately at home.

“My mom was an elementary school teacher and my father was a high school teacher and football coach,” said Monique. “Education was always an important factor in our home. As I raised the kids, when they got a report card, I got a report card. If they weren’t coming up to par, it was always, ‘Well, what are YOU doing and what didn’t YOU do?’

Working as a licensed practical nurse, she constantly re-arranged her work schedule depending on the needs of DeMarcus, his brother and three sisters.

Sometimes, she crammed a forty-hour work week into two days. Others, she worked the day shift so she could be home when the school day ended. When hospital shifts became too regimented, she worked in home health care or picked up assignments in nursing homes that offered more flexibility.

“My biggest thing was to be there through their growth and development,” said Monique. “We were elbow to elbow, through thick and thin. I just tried to be a positive role model, setting goals for them that would lead to a rewarding, productive life.”

“Momma gave up her life for us,” said Jaleel, a 6-foot-11 center at Spanish Fort High School who’s being recruited by Seton Hall, among other D-I schools. “She never hung out, never did anything she might have wanted to do because she was with us. She never had any free time at all, and I don’t remember her getting much sleep.”

“I’m so thankful for my mother,” said DeMarcus. “She put aside so much for us to grow up and have the best life possible.”

FOOTBALL FIRST

In the football-mad state of Alabama, DeMarcus was initially drawn to the gridiron at the age of seven. But Monique grew concerned as the years passed and her son seemingly began to grow taller by the day, his coaches suggesting that he take laxatives, drink excessive amounts of water, diet, exercise and sweat profusely in order to make weight every week.

“He was growing so fast and was all legs,” said Monique. “Football wasn’t a good fit, and I told him, ‘You’ve got to find something else to do.’ He wasn’t happy and told me, ‘There’s nothing else I want to do!’”.

People would approach DeMarcus as he got into middle school, asking if he played hoops. “I play football!” he’d reply. As a 6-foot-4 seventh grader, he kept the book at the scorer’s table for the school basketball team.

Other than messing around on the playground from time to time, the game held no true allure for him. When a recruiter for the Birmingham Storm AAU program spotted him at the age of 14, he assumed the 6-foot-6 Cousins was a senior in high school. When asked if he knew any eighth graders that wanted to play basketball, the next few words he uttered altered his life trajectory considerably: “I’m in the eighth grade.”

When Storm coach Danny Pritchett started working with him, Cousins had a difficult time doing the simplest things on the court. While Pritchett tried to explain the world of AAU hoops to his new find, DeMarcus was far from convinced that he wanted to participate.

“I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t want to leave home,” said DeMarcus. “They said, ‘You’re gonna travel everywhere’, and I was like, ‘Nah, I’m good!’ I was thinking about buses and planes crashing, all kinds of stuff. But I went ahead and played in my first tournament and enjoyed it.”

Cousins began calling Pritchett every day to work out, encouraged by his accelerated learning curve.

“I was becoming better and just grew to love it,” said DeMarcus. “I started to enjoy outplaying other people.”

SOCIAL SKILLS

Outside of the tremendous skill set he was developing with astonishing quickness, Cousins began to thrive socially, developing bonds on long road trips with others outside of his family.

“Playing video games in the hotels, the water fights, knocking on people’s doors and running away, I enjoyed all of that stuff so much and just being around that group of guys,” said DeMarcus. “They became like my second family.”

As a freshman in high school, Cousins announced his arrival on the prep scene with dominating performances, averaging 26 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists while shooting 70 percent from the field.

“I was playing against seniors and started killing everybody,” said DeMarcus. “My confidence was out the roof, and I felt like nobody could stop me.”

After an equally stunning run through the summer circuit, Cousins completed a remarkable stretch that saw him go from being barely able to make a layup as an eighth grader to being named the top prospect in the country heading into his sophomore year.

“After that 9th grade summer when they ranked him No. 1 in his class, that’s when everything went upside down,” said Monique. “Things became chaotic with people wanting him to leave his AAU team to play with them, people offering shoes and other things, trying to buy him. People said some really crazy, mean things about him.”

When it became apparent that Cousins would stay loyal to the coaches and teammates he started with, and not jump to rival AAU programs or make rushed commitments to shady coaches at other high schools and even some colleges that were promising to take care of him and his family financially, the persistent pressure became overwhelming. People who’d previously smiled at and encouraged him, even some faculty members in his own school, were now increasingly hostile toward him.

“I kept telling everybody that wanted me to play for them, ‘Nah, I’m good with my team,’” said Cousins. “Honestly, I think all of the bad media and negative perceptions of me started from there. Some of the things, I could’ve controlled better, but I was a kid, all of this stuff was new to me. But people were throwing dirt on my name, on Danny Pritchett’s name, and it just got ridiculous.”

ANGER MANAGEMENT

The smoke of his developing negative reputation smoldered into a raging fire when, as a sophomore at Erwin High School in Birmingham, he was involved in a physical altercation with a faculty member on a school bus following a game. Despite his assertions that he was simply defending himself and was not the aggressor, he was suspended for the remainder of the season.

“I don’t care who you are, if a grown man puts his hands on you, you’re either going to defend yourself or get mad and react in some type of way,” DeMarcus said.

During his final two seasons after transferring to LeFlore High School, many opposing coaches encouraged their teams to punish him physically, harping on his reputation as a hot head that would eventually lose his cool.

“When the scouting report says simply, ‘Beat up the kid’, that’s not basketball,” said DeMarcus. “We’re not talking about double or triple teams. So, of course I’m gonna be mad when that stuff happens. Sometimes I handled it well, sometimes I didn’t.”

REP WAS BAD RAP

Despite the constant physical abuse, including having his front teeth knocked out four times, according to Monique, DeMarcus was never ejected from a game while playing for LeFlore, where he earned the prestigious McDonald’s and Jordan Brand All-American honors. Nor did his new coach see that his soiled reputation was warranted.

“On the court he may be tough, but off the court he’s scared of the dog,” LeFlore coach Otis Hughley told Yahoo Sports’ Jason King in March of 2010. “He’s not a wussy kid, but he’s a sweet kid. I don’t know anyone that’s met him that doesn’t like him.”

Leaving the dark cloud that followed him throughout Alabama, Cousins felt reborn during his one season at the University of Kentucky. Not only did the change of scenery give him a fresh start, he also assumed a new alias.

“I got my nickname from assistant coach Rod Strickland,” said Cousins. “Every day in practice, he’d be saying ‘Boog! Boogie! Ayo Boogie! What up Boogie!’”

“DeMarcus was handling the ball in practice, doing some things I hadn’t seen a big dude do,” said Strickland, a 17-year NBA veteran. “He was doing some guard stuff with the ball. I told him, ‘You’ve got some boogie with you, huh?’ And I just kept calling him Boogie. He’s a unique big dude that has a chance to redefine that center and power forward position. He can do some things that people haven’t seen him do yet.”

In Lexington, Cousins endeared himself to the rabid UK fan base in way that not many others have. During home games at Rupp Arena, the crowd was regularly awash with poster boards touting marriage proposals or boasting how much Kentuckians loved their Cousins.

“Kentucky’s a passionate place where they accept you for who you are,” said DeMarcus. “It felt so good to go up there and be myself. None of the other stuff mattered. I played my heart out for them, for an entire state, and they loved me.”

Cousins and fellow freshmen John Wall and Eric Bledsoe spearheaded the program’s ascension back to the upper echelon of college hoops in John Calipari’s first season at UK, leading the Wildcats to a 35-3 record and an appearance in the Elite Eight.

On the court, Cousins mesmerized with his rare dexterity, hunger, nimbleness, size, strength, soft hands and deft footwork in the paint. Despite playing a little more than 20 minutes per game due to a penchant for accumulating fouls, he averaged 15 points and 10 rebounds for the season, phenomenal numbers when you consider how often he was sitting on the bench.

“DeMarcus is one of the most talented big men I've ever had,” Calipari once said. “He has tremendous ball-handling skills for a player his size. His combination of size and shooting ability should make him tough to defend. He has a mean streak on the court that gives him an edge.”

But when the cameras caught Cousins and Calipari arguing on the bench during games, many took that as continued evidence of the enigmatic player’s attitude problem.

“DeMarcus has an edge and he has to watch that at times, but he’s a great dude,” said Strickland. “Once he respects you, you’re good. He’s a good natured dude who is good at heart. But if he senses you being fake, or not being straight up with him, then you might have a problem.”

HONEST TO A FAULT

What some call an edge might be something as simple as sincerity. You see, DeMarcus Cousins does not have the capacity to beat around the proverbial bush. He doesn’t know anything other than honestly sharing his opinions and emotions, regardless of how others may react.

“DeMarcus is the most truthful person I know,” said Monique. “A person like that is easier to handle, for me, because if you ask him a question, he’s gonna give you an honest opinion, whether you like it or not. But he’s extremely loyal, a die-hard who is true to the cause.”

The cocoon he enjoyed at Kentucky, similar to the nourishing experience on his first AAU team, was shattered when he declared for the draft after his end-of-season meeting with Calipari.

“I remember Cal’s exact words when I walked into his office,” said DeMarcus. “He said, ‘I love ya kid. You’ve had a great year. They’ve got you going top five and this is how it’s gonna be. If you want to feed my family, you stay. If you want to feed yours, leave.’”

CHARACTER QUESTIONS

Throughout the days leading up to the draft, Cousins was again inundated with negative stories about his character, the fight with the staff member at Erwin and his alleged bad attitude, as opposed to his rare talent, tremendous potential and magnificent season at Kentucky.

“It was the same stories all over again, people were questioning if I was going to blow up and be fat like Oliver Miller and all kinds of negative stuff,” said DeMarcus. “It felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. It got to the point where I realized that there was nothing I could do other than let my play speak for itself.”

During one of his initial workouts in preparation for the draft, Williams, his personal trainer, arranged a private session with another of his clients, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s magnificent Kevin Durant. After going through drills, shooting and skill work, Cousins and Durant squared off for a game of one-on-one at the empty Capitol Sports Complex in District Heights, Md.

“Kev crossed him up and scored,” Williams said. “On the next play, DeMarcus crossed KD up and dunked on him.”

Durant looked at Williams with raised eyebrows and said, “I thought you said he was a center.”

“He is! But he has those type of ball skills,” Williams replied.

Cousins’ successful rookie campaign last year, where he averaged 14 points and nine boards, was lost in Sacramento’s abysmal record and the aerial pyrotechnics of Rookie of the Year Blake Griffin. Despite being named to the All-Rookie First Team, scoring 33 points in the rookie-sophomore game during All-Star weekend and showing glimpses of his tantalizing potential at various times, it was a locker room fight with teammate Donte Green that seemed to define his season.

More people talked about the fight than they did the night he scored 29 points and grabbed seven rebounds against the Orlando Magic and Dwight Howard.

“Yes, I had a fight in the locker room,” DeMarcus conceded. “It happens in this type of workplace when people are very competitive, when they’re competing to win and hate losing. It’s a part of sports. I’m gonna make some mistakes, and I’m gonna make some strides. But I know at the end of it, I’m going to figure it all out.”

What bothered Cousins most was the new label being associated with him: Thug.

“I’ve been around thugs growing up and I’m no thug,” said Cousins. “That bothers me. Because I play with an attitude? I get mad when I make a bad play or when a play doesn’t go the way I want it to. And at the same time, I’m the happiest person on the floor when something goes well for my team. But they never show that perspective.”

COMPASSION FOR KIDS

Another perspective that’s rarely shown is the compassion he has for people in general, and children in particular.

“To know who DeMarcus really is, all you have to do is see him around kids,” said Strickland. “He is great with them, and he’s a natural.”

When Tuscaloosa was ravaged by a vicious tornado in late April, Cousins showed up to lend a hand for disaster relief.

“Through it all, I love Alabama and I felt like it was my responsibility to go and help,” said DeMarcus.

Touring destroyed neighborhoods and talking to people at a Red Cross shelter, he was personally hurt by the devastation and struck by the sadness of one boy who refused to get up from his cot to play with a group of kids.

“I went to talk to him and he had this blank stare on his face,” said DeMarcus. “At his young age, he looked like an adult, like he knew how messed up things were and how his life wouldn’t be the same. I think about him now and believe he’s going to be something really special one day.”

The real DeMarcus Cousins is the one at home, lounging on the couch, joking with his family in the home he bought for them in Southern Alabama. The old house in Mobile was small enough to fit into the new home's family room in the basement.

Yet, the new place is conservative, not ostentatious or anything one might think a 21-year-old millionaire might splurge on. There’s no posse of hangers on, no diamond necklaces or fleet of luxury cars, just DeMarcus wearing shorts, a tee shirt and flip flops. He smiles easily while talking and laughing with his mother as they watch a TV replay of Reggie Miller’s Indiana Pacers taking on Penny Hardaway and Shaquille O’Neal’s Orlando Magic.

“Money has never been a big issue for us,” said DeMarcus. “I came up with nothing. I’m in my second year in the NBA, and I still have one car. That’s just the way I was raised. I know that all of this is temporary. So you have to take advantage of the opportunities and save your money because it doesn’t last long. I have money now, but I’m still cheap,” he laughs.

But there is one thing that he’s adamant about splurging on.

“I’ll do anything for my mother because she put all of her goals aside for us,” DeMarcus said. “And I’ll try to give her the world. Anything she wants, she can have.”

“I was always working, whether it was fast food or other jobs while I was studying or working as a nurse for 18 years,” said Monique. “I was working up until the day he got drafted when he came up to me and said, ‘Mom, you need to stop working now. It’s time for you to get some rest and have some fun.’”

When asked to talk about his first-year highlights, he searches for the answer during a prolonged silence.

“The Rookie game or the 29 points against Orlando, those weren’t highlights to me,” said DeMarcus. “Through all of my mistakes, I know what I’m capable of. I know there’s nobody in the world that can stop me. My whole thing is, I just have to put it all together. And when that happens, it’s gonna be a scary sight. The real highlight for me is gonna be when the world realizes it.”

Back in the gym, a day before packing his bags to head back to Sacramento, DeMarcus the comedian is in rare form. Save for the sound of bouncing balls echoing through the empty gym and the rhythmic chirping of texts coming through the iPhones resting on the bleachers, the defining sound of the evening is genuine laughter.

He playfully teases Jaleel while snickering, “Stop shooting all those air balls!”

“Man, I can’t shoot with this ball,” Jaleel says.

“Man, you can’t shoot with no ball!” DeMarcus responds with a sinister smile.

The brothers begin wrestling under the basket and fall to the floor as Jaleel begins giggling. DeMarcus has him pinned against the wall, tickling him.

Walking out of the gym toward the Range Rover, DeMarcus has an extra pep in his step.

“C’mon man,” he tells Jaleel. “I got a date tonight. A date-date-date-date-date!” The words fly out with the rapidity of machine gun fire.

“The twin towers, people don’t know about them when they’re together,” Monique said. “There is laughter in the house all the time, to the point where you have to tell them to shut up. And they still won’t stop! And it’s gotten worse over the years.”

NO DEAL

Cousins insists that he never demanded to be traded from Sacramento, as Westphal had claimed

“Paul Westphal did a great job of portraying me as the bad guy,” DeMarcus says. “My words were definitely twisted up.”

After he suspended Cousins for one game, management decided to part ways with Westphal, whom many felt had lost the respect of the young players in the Kings locker room.

Cousins’ performance has improved significantly under new coach Keith Smart. In the six games this season before Westphal was fired, Cousins averaged 13.7 points and 9.3 rebounds. In the 23 games since the coaching change, he’s averaging 17.3 points and 12.0 rebounds.

He’s proven impervious to the dreaded sophomore slump, increasing his production in almost every major offensive and defensive category this season. And he’s only beginning to scratch the surface.

“Keith Smart is a bright young coach who can relate to all of us better,” said DeMarcus. “Sacramento is where I want to be. These are hard days right now, the losing eats at me but we have a lot of talented young guys. We’re going to continue to work together and things are going to get better. Once we get it, we’re going to be a scary team to face for many years to come.”

Back at home after their workout, Jaleel and DeMarcus crack jokes while ringing the bell, looking through the front window at their mom sitting on the couch. At first glance, she’s sitting up, but when you look closer, she’s sleeping, catching a nap.

As the door opens, DeMarcus scurries through the vestibule and disappears downstairs. “I got a date. A date-date-date-date-date,” his voice trails off.

It’s a reminder that he’s still a young kid who should only be a junior in college and happier at home than anyplace in the world, a kid who loves to compete, who burns to be the best at what he does. He’s inspired to prove everybody wrong, especially the people who call him a thug, a knucklehead or a head case.

“It eats me up to hear all of the negativity,” said DeMarcus. “My motivation is to prove all the haters wrong and when that happens, the All-Star games, the All-League honors, all of that stuff is going to come. And at the end of the day, I’m gonna ask all those people who did all those negative stories about me, ‘What do you have to say now?’”

“DeMarcus is still learning and he’s got a long way to go,” said Strickland. “But once he gets it, it’s over! He’s young. Once he matures, once his game matures, he’s gonna be a problem for other teams every single night. He’s already a problem, but he’s gonna be a real problem once it all comes together.”

Alejandro Danois is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, Bounce Magazine and Dime Magazine. Email him at alejandrodanois@yahoo.com.



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