Kevin Garnett is one of the greatest power forwards of all time. He arguably has one the most infectious positive/winning attitudes in the history of sports, and single handedly changed the culture of this Celtics franchise with his hard work and attitude.
Kevin Garnett successfully fuels his emotions into playing hard and trying his hardest to win every night. Kevin Garnett doesn't/didn't take plays off and cherished every second he was out on the floor.
DeMarcus Cousins is an embarrassment to guys like KG who appreciate every moment they have the chance to play in the NBA.
DMC is Kevin Garnett's ball boy.
Lets see if KG would have been so well behaved if he had to deal with the Kings organisation in it's current state...
KG went through a miserable stretch at Minny.
The two men are completely different because KG still played his heart out, even when they sucked. Cousins has never been any different from the moment he walked out onto the college parquet.
He was a whiney, emotional, pouting, scolding brat at Kentucky, and he's the same brat at Sacto.
To compare the attitudes of the two is just insulting to Kevin Garnett.
It's fine to wanna back up Cousins and say he's in the wrong situation/needs a change of scenery but you can never compare Cousins to KG.
Cousins is a mental midget. KG is one of the mentally strongest players to ever play the game.
KG made the playoffs every single year from 1996/97 to 2003/04 with a great coach in Flip Saunders.
It wasn't until the 2004/05 season (when Flip was replaced by Kevin McHale) that they missed the playoffs, and they finished that season with a .537 win record.
KG suffered only three seasons with a losing record, and in two of those seasons they were still reasonably competitive (0.402, 0.390) so only one true stinker of a season (0.268).
It's not so hard to swallow three bad seasons when you have just spent your first 9 years in the league playing on a competitive and well coached teams.
Cousins hasn't had a single winning season since he's been in the league, nor has he played for really a single good coach. That's on top of the organisation being an absolute farce.
Comparing what the two players went through is a joke.
KG was happy to sacrifice his game when he came to Boston because he had had so much success already in Minnesota, and was ready to sacrifice for a title.
The guys had even been on record saying that they never would have worked together if they tried to join earlier in their careers, when their egos were still huge.
Again, it's very different going through 8-9 years of winning and then having to live through 3 years of losing, then going to a new team and going through anther 4-5 years of winning...versus having nothing but losing from the day you enter the league, and playing for nothing but bad coaches on poorly managed teams.
Absolutely no comparison.
Crim, there is no comparison because Kevin Garnett has never taken a single play 'off' in his NBA career. DMC routinely gives up on his team. He dogs it routinely. When things don't go his way on the court, he whines. He gives up, puts his head down, shakes his head when team mates miss a shot or a pass to him. He literally acts like a 12 year old child.
Great players lead by example. The lead. They let their coaches give them guidance and show respect to their coaches so their coaches can lead the team.
This guy doesn't lead anyone. He doesn't have the respect of his team mates. He doesn't have the respect of his coaches.
How can anyone respect a guy that won't respect the basic fundamentals of being a professional basketball player?
The guy is a generational talent. Unfortunately he's a generational brat.
Will he mature as he gets older? It's possible- but he hasn't shown a single thing to make us think that he'll ever change his behavior and it's always someone else's fault.
The coach, the GM, the owner, the organization. But never Cousins.
To compare KG to Cousins in any way is completely misinterpreting KG's passion and fire/hard work/never give up attitude and is manipulating the story of an NBA legend in an attempt to bring credibility or reasoning to DMC's childish, pathetic and blatantly selfish behavior.
It's bull$%*%
Firstly, this argument is become like an infinite loop - nobody seems to listen.
The argument about KG never giving up or taking plays off is partially irrelevant because KG hasn't ever been in the position that Cousins is in right now.
KG has played 20 seasons in the league (not including this year) and in all that time he has had only two seasons (05/06, 06/07) where his team had a < 0.450 win record. Almost every single team he has played on has been competitive. The Kings have not once finished with a record above 0.400 since Cousins was drafted into the league.
KG has also gone on record in the past talking about how much he benefited from the mentoring of veteran Sam Mitchell and coach Flip Saunders in Minnesota, and how much those guys helped him grow from a boy into a man. Rondo is probably the closest thing Cousins has ever had to a mentor, and Rondo's attitude is no better than Cousins' is.
Finally, when did the any of KG's teams go through even a fraction of the head office problems that Sacramento are going through right now? As far as I know never. The stuff going on with Karl right now is utterly ridiculous - it's probably the worst coaching situation a team has had since the Lakers tested their fate on D'Antoni.
So KG's circumstances are absolutely completely different to Cousins' circumstances, which makes it completely impossible to determine what KG would have behaved like if the tables were turned.
What if Cousins started his career in Minnesota, with a good coach, a veteran mentor started winning games from the start. Would things be different?
What if KG started his career in Sacramento, with Karl trying to rat him out constantly, no veteran leadership, and suffering through 6 lottery seasons? Would things be different?
We don't know, because we can't know, because that's not how things happened.
All we know is that both guys are very emotional and passionate, both love to jaw at refs and other players, both have gotten into a number of off-court altercations, and both are generally considered dirty players.
Hell I still remember after the KG trade we played his team one day and he managed to get into an altercation with Kelly Olynyk of all people - probably the least aggressive/violent player on this team, yet KG still managed to start a fight with him.
You can't just conclude that Cousins is such a worse guy then KG, if KG has never had to suffer through the circumstances that Cousins has been through his first 6 years. Anybody who tries to argue that KG went through the same things is so clearly biased it's almost sickening - because the two players had career paths that were practically complete polar opposites.
Topic: Voisin of Sacramento Bee: Cousins must be traded (Read 21944 times)