by Ken Gimblin

SACRAMENTO–DeMarcus Cousins came up through the ranks at the Sacramento Kings during his rookie season in 2011-12 often showing his growing pains with former Kings head coach Paul Westphal. On occasions at practice Cousins who may not have agreed to Westphal’s plays or the way he was addressed or the way he would address Westphal back. Cousins opened up the new year in 2012 on January 1st getting a one home game suspension from Westphal for “unwilling/unable to embrace traveling in the same direction as his team, it cannot be ignored indefinitely” Cousins asked to be traded to another team but that request was denied.

Westphal was fired from the team four days later on January 5, 2012 some at the time said it was a “either he goes or I go” situation between Westphal and Cousins. Westphal was replaced at that point by former Golden State Warrior head coach Keith Smart. The next season 2012-13 on December 22, 2012 Cousins was suspended indefinitely for “unprofessional behavior and conduct detrimental to the team” the suspension lasted only two days as Cousins was reinstated by the club on December 24, 2012.

This season 2013-14 under head coach Mike Malone, Cousins has shown he has grown up and there have been no reports of indifferences with he or Malone or the coaches and the Kings are glad that they stuck with Cousins saying with his great ability he will be the future and marquee of the organization especially after the new arena is up and running in downtown Sacramento in October of 2017. The Kings owner Vivek Ranadive says he has foresite for this team and sees Cousins leading the way and doing great things for the future of the club.

Cousins has been a far cry from those challenging first two years with the club where it was a wonder if he would be able to stay in Sacramento given all the troubles he had when he first broke into the NBA. Cousins image has also taken an upswing taking an interest in the community and donating $1 million to the families of the Sacramento community after signing a big contract at the beginning of this season.

What’s a bitcoin? The Kings who have started this week to accept bitcoin as regular currency for ticket payments are noted to be the first in professional sports to do so. Ranadive wants the Kings to be state of the art in accepting the crytocurrency “when I sold the NBA on keeping the team in Sacramento, my pitch included using the sports franchise as a social network to push the technology envelope. This is an example of that” said Ranadive.

There had been talk that if there would be some kind of currency change in the future whether it be the Amero or Bitcoin but with the Kings introducing accepting the coin this could be the start of the coin being accepted as mainstream currency as opposed to paper tickets or cash at Sleep Train Arena.

One Bitcoin is valued at $850 but the coin also brings some downsides as it is regarded as digital cash and it could be electronically erased. Also Wall Street says the economy is still shaky with some volatility particularly in the retail market where JC Penny just announced that it’s closing 33 stores and laying off 2000 employees as the tip of that ice berg and the current $850 price tag could drop. Outside of that Ranadive says the idea of bitcoin can be profitable for the team and user friendly for fans if used in a frequent and successful way that it was designed for. To see how Bitcoin succeeds time will tell but the Kings are accepting the coin now.

Ken Gimblin covers the Kings for Sportstalk radio