DeMarcus Cousins’ heartbreaking goodbye to Sacramento reveals the humanity of trades

Here’s a video of DeMarcus Cousins saying goodbye to a gathering of Sacramentans, via local radio host Carmichael Dave. It’s difficult to watch.

“My love for this city will never change,” Cousins said, holding back tears. “Even though I’m gone, it’ll still be the same. I’m still looking out for these kids. Every family in this city matters to me, every soul in this city matters to me. Everything’s the same, I’m just not in a Kings uniform anymore, which is OK because the love’s still here.”

Idolization is bad because it’s dehumanizing. It takes someone like Cousins and turns him into an infallible being. He’s not volatile; it’s the Kings’ ineptitude that is causing him to get frustrated. His attitude isn’t bad; he’s just passionate. He’s unfairly targeted by referees. There’s a witch hunt against him. On and on. This can all be true, but the more that he’s idolized, the less objective the evidence becomes.

The opposite is the demonization by people like Kings play-by-plan man Grant Napear, who chose to see Cousins as the entire problem instead of part of it. This went beyond basketball and felt personal, which clouded his judgement in the same manner idolization would have.

It’s human nature to shoehorn people into comfortable categories, even if it’s lazy and a disservice to them. Judging athletes like Cousins as humans, with all of their wealth, talent, celebrity, and attention that magnifies and sensationalizes every action, is almost impossible.

It gets even harder when they are involved in a blockbuster trade. Transactions whittle players down to their points, assists, rebounds, and blocks averages. They turn these humans into picks and cash compensation. They become known for their contracts. This is particularly true during the trade deadline, when we’re on the edge of our seats waiting for overnight Woj bombs. In the heat of the moment, we sometimes forget that these are human beings being uprooted because of their jobs.

In the whirlwind of money, picks, papers, and projections, what a player means to their teammates and city gets overlooked. Consider the Celtics players’ reaction to the last-minute deal involving a declining Kendrick Perkins in 2011:

“There were literally tears in the locker room,” Doc Rivers told Sports Illustrated’s Jake Fischer. “There were guys crying. It was almost like a death.”

His apologists are fiercely loyal and his critics are relentlessly unforgiving. He’s also much more than just his job. He didn’t just pass through Sacramento, he became a pillar in the city. He matters to people.

Over the past six and a half years, Cousins has entrenched himself in the community. He’s been praised on the floor of the House of Representatives for his charity work. He quietly paid the funeral costs of a slain high school football player. He donated $1 million to charity right after signing a contract extension. While he’s temperamental on the court, he’s by all accounts a generous pillar to Sacramento. He loves the city, and residents who come in direct contact with him return that passion.

That’s why it’s hard to watch him say goodbye to people who shouldn’t matter to him, not with all of his money and fame. It’s hard to see him on the verge of tears and not feel as if the sport is the smallest factor in this blockbuster trade.

This is the challenge of seeing someone like Cousins as human and complex. If Cousins got into more trouble off the court, classifying his humanity would be easier. It’s hard to argue against a player’s criminal history during a sporting argument.

But from what we know, he’s not a bad person at all outside the lines. He cares a lot about other human beings, seeing them as complex creatures worthy of attention beyond that required by his team obligations. In turn, many of them also see also him as more than just a basketball player. And, in turn, more than a guy that pisses off old sports reporters every other week.

We can understand why the Kings traded Cousins, even if we don’t understand the return they received in the trade. Each side needed a fresh start. But when videos emerge showing Cousins spilling his heart to his fans away from that sporting world, it strips down what makes sports special to its most basic level.

It shows that the abstract numbers are hardly the fun of sports. It might seem like it for some people, especially during trades, but the emotional connection to the game and its people fuels that perspective. Heroes seem like heroes because we genuinely feel that they are, and villains seem like villains for the same reason. When LeBron James hits a game-winning shot against our team, it feels like a personal attack. If he does it for our team, it feels like he honestly cares for us. This perspective is irrational, but it sells because emotions aren’t rational at all.

But that’s still only on the court. When we meet our heroes away from the arena and they’re terrible people, that delusion is broken and the luster goes away. And when we see a supposed villain professing his love for regular people, trying not to cry at the hurt of leaving them, it breaks our heart and reminds us how ruthless the basketball business is. We only understand that when we look at people as people.

Once that happens, we realize how sad it is to see DeMarcus Cousins leave the city of Sacramento, even if he needed to leave the Kings.