‘Bitter ex’ DeMarcus Cousins calls for ‘change at the top’ with Sacramento Kings
Count former Sacramento Kings star DeMarcus Cousins among those who would like owner Vivek Ranadivé to sell his interest in the team amid its lackluster season start.
Cousins, who played for the Kings from 2010 to 2017, made his remarks on “Run it Back,” described on X as the flagship NBA show for the FanDuel TV cable channel. Cousins is described on the show’s X profile as one of the “stars” of the show along with fellow former NBA players Chandlers Parsons and Lou Williams and journalist Michelle Beadle.
The show posted a screenshot Wednesday of Cousins’ remarks. A roughly 1-minute video clip also made the rounds on TikTok.
“I don’t even like speaking on the Kings ‘cause for some reason, whatever I say is taken as I’m bitter or whatever,” Cousins said, with Beadle and Williams alongside him.
Cousins continued that he’d ‘just keep the facts the facts” amid the team’s 3-9 start ahead including Wednesday night’s 133-100 loss to Atlanta in which fans booed players at Golden 1 Center. The Kings start their five-game road trip in Minnesota on Friday night as the second-to-last team in the Western Conference.
“It’s bad, it’s been bad, it’s probably gonna continue to be bad unless some things change at the top.”
Cousins was drafted fifth overall in 2010, near the end of the tenure of the previous ownership, the Maloof family. The Maloofs helped make the Kings a winner when they bought the team in the late 1990s, though Sacramento went 25-57 the season before Cousins was drafted.
Ranadivé bought the team during Cousins’ third season. While Cousins made multiple All-Star teams thereafter with Sacramento, the Kings didn’t field a winning team while he was in town.
Cousins was traded with Omri Casspi to the New Orleans Pelicans for Buddy Hield and two others in 2017, with Cousins’ NBA career subsequently derailed by injuries. Although he’s still just 35, Cousins last played in the NBA in 2022 and has subsequently had stints with teams in Taiwan, Puerto Rico and Mongolia.
In recent years, Ranadivé has drawn criticism with his tendency to involve himself in basketball decisions, an activity he acknowledged in a 2022 interview with Comstock’s magazine. Even then, people were criticizing Ranadivé, such as his former minority owner Mark Mastrov.
“That one guy is just one voice in the room and he’s not listening to others that have good opinions,” said Mastrov then. He didn’t immediately respond to a message Friday.
This season, some fans have also questioned if Ranadivé played a role in the Kings trading away Jonas Valanciunas, a key backup center, for Dario Saric, who has barely played, in a cost-cutting move. A team spokesperson told The Bee that General Manager Scott Perry made the decision to trade Valanciunas.
After Cousins made his initial remarks on FanDuel TV, Williams gently ribbed him that “that’s your problem,” but Cousins didn’t back down. “I can’t sugarcoat it,” Cousins said. “The Kings have a great fanbase.”
Cousins said Kings fans have gone through thick and thin.
“It’s been 20 years of losing and they’re still filling the building up,” Cousins said. “So it shows you how much support these fans will have for this team. All they’re looking for is a winning product.”
He said he still followed a lot of Kings pages and that there was a lot of deserved outrage. But he also didn’t want to go on.
“I can’t say too much because I’m then the bitter ex,” Cousins said. “But the facts are the facts.”
This story was originally published November 14, 2025 at 10:54 AM.
