Less than a week after making his debut for the Pelicans, DeMarcus Cousins is facing his first suspension as a member of the team. The NBA announced today in a press release that, after receiving his 18th technical foul of the season on Sunday, Cousins has been suspended for one game without pay.
NBA rules call for an automatic one-game suspension after a player’s 16th technical foul of the season, plus additional one-game bans for every two technical fouls after that. Cousins was initially suspended for one game earlier this month as a member of the Kings after picking up his 16th technical of the 2016/17 campaign. He has since been hit with two more techs.
Cousins will miss the Pelicans’ next game on Wednesday night against the Pistons. He’ll also lose 1/110th of his salary for the season, the usual amount for a single-game suspension. Based on his salary of nearly $17MM, that works out to about $154K.
Not as much money as he lost by being traded to New Orleans!
This dude must not like money very much. Imagine all the rims and child support money he’s wasted.
Prediction for next season – Cousins misses 30 games due to suspensions.
Even as bad as the Kings are right now, I can tell you….from what I have seen….it feels like a breath of fresh air not having him throwing tantrums ever other game anymore. Vlade did the right thing. He may not have gotten the talent level back Cousins is worth…. but the potential of Hield and WCS together is the start of a solid team. You can see it, they have a ways to go before they will gel, before this team might get playoff good….but the building blocks are there. If they get down to the 8th or 9th pick and have the Pelicans pick on top of it…..this could get to be a very good young team, very fast.
Not saying they are good, but you can see what Vlade saw when he wanted Hield in the draft and the Pelicans got him instead. WCS has shown a lot of flashes of what he can be, just needs time to figure it all out.