There was perhaps no bigger public falling out between a star player and a coach than the one that happened between George Karl and DeMarcus Cousins. The two former Sacramento Kings clearly didn’t get along during their time together and it appears things haven’t changed. Karl has been out of the NBA since his lone season in Sacramento back in 2015-16. However, that didn’t stop him from jumping at the chance to take a shot at Cousins on Twitter.
Not only did he make it clear that he “dislikes” Cousins, but he also insinuated that he was a snake by posting a snake emoji. That’s some serious shade from a 69-year-old man. The bad blood clearly runs deep between the two men. Cousins has definitely toned things down since his stint in Sacramento so perhaps one day they can reconcile.
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Karl Recently Opened up About Beef With Cousins
Unfortunately for Karl and Cousins, many of the details over their beef have become public information over the years. Karl and his assistant coach in Sacramento Vance Walberg did the Purple Talk podcast earlier this year and talked about the issue.
“As soon as [Karl] walks in DeMarcus just goes off, I mean off,” Walberg said following a loss to the San Antonio Spurs, via NBC Sports. “Coach hasn’t even said a word and it’s ‘F you, Coach; you think you’re a f***ing Hall of Fame coach. All the hell you care about is your wins. You don’t give a s*** about us.'”
Karl then chimed in on some of the fallout from that altercation.
“DeMarcus and I had a confrontation after the game and we meet the next morning and we have a long serious talk that we can turn this into a win. Because we’ve got to suspend DeMarcus and whatever it is, for two or three games, and maybe he’ll wake up that he can’t be the boss. We went in and fought very hard that we had to suspend him.”
Karl further went after the big man.
“He knew he could divide the organization from the coach,” Karl said about Cousins. “Unfortunately, if he knew that, then the players knew that.”
Karl & Cousins Have Fallen From Grace
Since Cousins and Karl stopped working with each other, things haven’t exactly gone great for either. Karl hasn’t coached an NBA game since his stint with the Kings. He was once the NBA Coach of the Year and has won 1,175 games in his career. He’s one of the most prolific coaches in NBA history to never win a championship but now he’s out of work. His career is probably over.
Cousins was eventually sent to the New Orleans Pelicans and enjoyed some success before suffering a devastating Achilles injury that knocked him out for about a year. He got back on the court for a brief time but got hurt again and missed all of last season. His career definitely isn’t over yet but he’s had a tough road since leaving the Kings. He was most recently with the Los Angeles Lakers and is currently a free agent.
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George Karl Takes Brutal Shot at Ex-Laker DeMarcus Cousins