It’s no secret that Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins isn’t Chris Paul’s biggest fan. Earlier this season, after the Kings lost a nail-biter to the Clippers, Cousins wouldn’t let Isaiah Thomas shake hands with the Los Angeles point guard. Now we have some more insight into that incident and the general mindset of the Sacramento big man, thanks to this profile by Grantland’s Jonathan Abrams:
Cousins maintains a rivalry with the Clippers, and Paul in particular. “It’s just, some players I don’t respect,” Cousins said. “Just their playing style of basketball. I don’t respect it. I feel like it’s basically cheating and I don’t respect a cheater. If that’s your tactic to winning, I don’t respect you.”
In November, he memorably yanked Isaiah Thomas away as he attempted to shake Paul’s hand after a close loss. “It was [him being competitive],” Thomas said. “At the same time, I told him, ‘Everyone looks at everything that you do. So they may take it a different way than what you were trying to do. You’re mad we lost. You don’t want to shake hands with them, but you didn’t have to pull me away to make it something that it wasn’t. You made everyone say, “Oh, he’s a bad guy because he doesn’t want to shake hands.”’ Everybody doesn’t shake hands after games anyways. But they single him out because of how he did it.”
