Ex-Kings call basketball team’s announcer a clown, ‘closet racist’ in Twitter exchange
The saga detailing the DeMarcus Cousins and Sacramento Kings announcer Grant Napear feud has been chronicled on wet parchment paper in the past, with the sheets falling apart at a simple touch. In a classic game of he said/he said, each have tried to call out the other using semantics, social media and radio waves as weapons.
Now, with a backdrop of fury and racial unrest fueled by the death of George Floyd, Cousins still hasn’t forgotten about Napear’s past controversial stance on the subject of racism.
“@TheDougChristie would love to get a response from @GrantNapearshow about BLM. Can you help make that happen?” Cousins asked in a tweet.
Napear responded: Hey!!!! How are you? Thought you forgot about me. Haven’t heard from you in years. ALL LIVES MATTER...EVERY SINGLE ONE!!!”
In 2017, a whisper in Cousins’ ear during an All-Star Game presser changed everything and sent the franchise’s star packing to New Orleans. With distance between them, one would assume the feuding between the man known as the “Voice of the Kings” and the former Kentucky superstar would evaporate.
But it didn’t.
Even with Cousins no longer at center court in Sacramento, Napear still spoke heatedly about the player who had been the face of the Kings for seven years.
“If there is any player in the NBA that should not be talking about fan behavior, and about how to treat athletes as opposed to people, it’s DeMarcus Cousins,” Napear said on his radio program he hosts with former Kings star Doug Christie back in 2019. Cousins called out Toronto Raptors fans for cheering when then-Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant suffered a season-ending Achilles tendon injury and Napear wasn’t having it.
“This guy is the crudest, most vile player that I have ever been around in my 31 years in the NBA,” Napear said.
On Sunday, other former Kings players backed up Cousins.
“Demarcus we know and have known who grant is. The team knows as well. I’ve told them many times. They’ve seen it. They know who he is,” former Kings All-Star Chris Webber said.
“Would expect nothing less from a closet racists,” said Matt Barnes, who played for the Kings back in 2004.
Napear went back to Twitter to clarify his response of “All Lives Matter.”
“If it came across as dumb I apologize. That was not my intent. That’s how I was raised. It has been engrained in me since I can remember. I’ve been doing more listening than talking the past few days. I believe the past few days will change this country for the better!” he said.
Napear has a history of making controversial comments on hot-button issues. surrounding racism in the past. In 2015, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was caught on tape by TMZ making racist comments to his mixed-race girlfriend. Napear, who defended Sterling despite all the mounting evidence against him, rehashed the topic on his radio show with Christie back in 2018. Napear had expressed that there is no way that Sterling could have been racist because he surrounded himself with black individuals.
“I don’t want to bring out a can of worms with Donald Sterling, but this always stuck out to me when this whole thing was going on,” Napear said. “This is a man in his 80s that had an African-American general manager, Elgin Baylor, and an African-American coach in Doc Rivers. Think about that for a minute.”
“To bring a blanket statement that this particular individual is racist because of this racial epithet that they used and yet this is the same guy who has African American general manger and an African American coach running their team. It doesn’t balance out to me is what I’m saying.”
UPDATE:
According to The Athletic, Napear has resigned from the Sacramento Kings.
Napear was also fired by Sports 1140, according to program director Jason Ross.
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 11:23 AM.