The Sacramento Kings adjust to life after DeMarcus Cousins

A year and a half. That’s how long head coach Dave Joerger, before his first season with the Sacramento Kings started, said it would take to get this team to back into playoff contention. Of course, that was before the proverbial reset button was hit, with the Kings trading DeMarcus Cousins to the New Orleans Pelicans just before the NBA Trade Deadline. The Kings, however, are hoping that excising Cousins is the shake of the game cartridge the organization desperately needed to get things working again.

Before the Kings played the Denver Nuggets in its first game since the trade, Joerger said the team is getting back to basics.

“Even when we walked through stuff today, and it’s simple stuff, and it’s nothing that nobody has not seen — they’re basketball players — it’s just how you do it in different places,” Joerger said. “So maybe we’re not as worried about Denver’s top 12 plays as simple actions.”

The trade was a shock to the system. Kings forward Anthony Tolliver didn’t believe it when he first started seeing notifications that Cousins could be on the move. After the deal to send Cousins to the New Orleans Pelicans was done, “We watched SportsCenter pretty much the rest of the night,” Tolliver told reporters.

Other players echoed the same sentiments. Cousins, after all, wanted to be in Sacramento. He wanted to sign a long-term extension that could have been worth upwards of $200 million. It’s rare that a player as productive as Cousins get traded, much less one that didn’t want to leave in the first place.

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General manager Vlade Divac defended the trade in a statement, saying “winning begins with culture and character matters.” Some shade thrown at Cousins, no doubt.

Respected play-by-play man Grant Napear called the trade, which netted the Kings Buddy Hield, Tyreke Evans and a 2017 first round pick, a “no brainer,” tweeting, “There has been a dark cloud hanging over this franchise for years! That cloud is now gone!”

In the Golden 1 Center on Thursday, one could sense the relief. Joerger entered the pregame press conference laughing on his phone, (“I’m here, where are you?” apparently to the team’s media relations guy) prompting chuckles from the assembled media. Reporters asked about the trade but never mentioned Cousins by name. They asked about “roster turnover” and “personnel changes.”

“There’s lots of smiles and hugs right now.”

Sacramento played its first game without Cousins the same night New Orleans debuted its vaunted new frontcourt against the Houston Rockets. There were multiple televisions in the media vestibule. Most are set to ESPN by default, which was playing Cavaliers-Knicks. One other in the workroom, which is usually tuned into a separate interesting NBA game, was tuned into college hoops. UCLA vs Arizona State. At one point, ESPN showed a game break of Cousins scoring for the Pelicans. No one stopped or acknowledged it. Life, and work, goes on.

The Kings beat the Nuggets that night in a rout, 116-100, their first game without Cousins on the roster in nearly seven seasons. After the game, Joerger credited the energy the team played with for the win, and the “positive vibe” the players have about getting to work.

“We’ve got a very solid locker room. So a couple of people aren’t there, guys have an opportunity to step up in leadership,” Joerger said. “There’s lots of smiles and hugs right now.”

Before the trade, just three Kings had double-digit scoring averages — Cousins, Darren Collison, and Rudy Gay (who is done for the season with a torn Achilles’ tendon). Six Kings players scored in double-figures against the Nuggets, including four off the bench.

“I just think everybody can really come together and play for one another, because literally we don’t have no All-Stars on the team,” said Darren Collison, who was mixed up in his own trade rumors earlier that day but ultimately remained in Sacramento. “We don’t have no super-star presence, so we need everybody to step up and kind of fulfill that role.”

Second-year center Willie Cauley-Stein played a season-high 35 minutes, finishing with 29 points, 10 rebounds and a block. Joerger had previously given Cauley-Stein a short leash but, as he admitted before the game, he has no choice but to play his younger players now.

“Just being free,” Cauley-Stein said of his game. “There’s not that thought in the back of your head like ‘oh, damn, he’s going to take me out if I make a mistake.’ Because, at this point, he’s going to have to put me back in.”

A mid-season trade of a player of Cousins’ caliber is a rare event, but it’s something Ty Lawson had been through before. Lawson was on the Nuggets when Carmelo Anthony was traded in the middle of the season to the Knicks. That Denver team went on to win 50-plus games and go to the playoffs for four-straight seasons. The Kings aren’t as talented as those Nuggets teams were, but Lawson sensed some similarities.

“I felt the same energy because we out here just sharing the ball, getting in the paint and everybody’s making the open shot or making the extra pass,” Lawson said after the game “It does feel like when Melo got traded, and everybody’s riding together. I feel like this is how it is right now. Nobody really cares who gets the shot or anything like that, we just trying to play to win.”

“We’re going to play hard, we’re going to try to get wins. We’re not going to just lay down and tank or whatever everybody was saying.”

The Kings will play faster without Cousins. They out-scored the Nuggets in transition points that night, and will continue to push the pace. Point guards who can penetrate like Lawson and Collison will kick out to open shooters, like the newly-acquired Hield and Ben McLemore. Cauley-Stein is much more limited than Cousins, but multiple Kings players called him “perfect” for what the team is trying to do. He can roll hard to the rim, and protect the paint. That’s all the Kings need their center to do, for now.

Even after trading Cousins to a competitor for the eighth seed in the Western Conference, the Kings’ goal remains to make the playoffs.

“They play to win,” Cauley-Stein said of his teammates. “That’s the biggest thing about us moving forward. Is being selfless and helping each other out because, at the end of the day, if we do that, everybody’s going in and everyone is going to have fun and you’re going to win games.”

You could argue there was some Ewing Theory going on here. A team often rallies after a trade of a star player, as do the fans. Evans — who started his career in Sacramento — was showered with applause when he debuted and Cauley-Stein’s big night was cheered. The fans remained on their feet for the fourth quarter.

“A lot of people been saying all these negative things about our team since the trade, and for us to come out and have that support by the fans is unbelievable,” Collison said.

That energy, eventually, subsides, and the team gets back to the grind of the regular season. In the game after beating the Nuggets, the Kings fell to a Charlotte Hornets team that had previously lost five straight. The enemy the Kings rallied against, though, isn’t Cousins. It really never was. Rather, it was the uncertainty. The questions: Can you win with Boogie? Should the Kings trade him? What’s worse, Cousins’ attitude or the front office’s often chaotic approach?

Just getting past that question is a relief. That was the real “dark cloud” over the organization and it’s the Pelicans’ problem now. While it’s still not sunny and blue skies, maybe the Kings can finally get the clean slate they have been chasing for years. Now the enemy is the doubters, an opponent the Kings have had plenty of but haven’t had the opportunity to focus on.

Listen: Ty Lawson talks about the Kings after Cousins

“It was killing us, killing Vlade, killing everybody,” Lawson said. “But, you know, I think everybody on this team got heart. We’re all men. We won’t lay down. We’re going to play hard, we’re going to try to get wins. We’re not going to just lay down and tank or whatever everybody was saying. Just got to show everybody.”

The Cousins conundrum had been hanging over the Kings organization for so long, and the team’s answer has often been to add things to mask the issue — veteran players, new coaches, a shiny new arena. Finally, they subtracted. It’s not that everyone is happy Cousins is gone — coaches and players reached out and wished him good luck — but everyone is happy the question is answered. It was tired. Now, even if just for a little while, the Kings are reenergized.