IT'S A SATURDAY night in Orlando and center DeMarcus Cousins is back, his fingerprints smeared all over a basketball game his Sacramento Kings urgently need to win, even though the season is in its infancy. It's been a tumultuous couple of weeks. It's always something with the Kings -- and whatever it is, usually involves Cousins.
The most recent episode: on Nov. 9, a postgame tirade after a fourth-quarter collapse against the Spurs that had dropped the team's record to 1-7. That outburst, team members confirm, was borne of Cousins' frustration over losing and included a profane diatribe directed at coach George Karl.