In a wide-ranging chat with News 10, Sacramento Kings star center DeMarcus Cousins talks about the vast, positive changes since the Maloofs sold the team. Cousins says he felt like they wasted his time. Per SI: “The Kings began the Vivek Ranadive ownership era with a picture-perfect season opener on Wednesday night, saluting the fans for their loyalty in an extended pre-game presentation before defeating the Nuggets 90-88. Healing old wounds, savoring the present and turning the page all at the same time is no easy task, but Sacramento — at least from the outside — sure looks like it achieved all three goals on opening night. All of the organization’s offseason changes — new ownership, new GM, new coach — are starting to sink in for franchise center DeMarcus Cousins, who provided this candid assessment of what the first three seasons of his career felt like under the cash-strapped Maloofs, who repeatedly explored the possibility of relocating the franchise. ‘It felt like an AAU team,’ Cousins said. ‘Everything [the critics] were saying before, I believe it’s true. We were the worst. We weren’t building for the future, we were just living in the moment. That’s why we were that bad. … Honestly, I feel like I wasted time. I hate the fact that it took everything we went through to get to this. I guess you could say it makes that much better.’ […] ‘We actually believe and we know things are right now,’ Cousins said. ‘It was tough to deal with it before because we really didn’t know where we were going; it was just another day at work. We didn’t know what was ahead.'”
