NBA Fines DeMarcus Cousins For Behaving Like The Cool Cat That, Frankly, He Has Become

DeMarcus Cousins isn't the player he once was, but his sometimes cantankerous disposition is still very much worth the price of admission. Cousins, once the best center in the NBA while with the Sacramento Kings, is now backup with the Denver Nuggets. An ACL tear and a torn Achilles robbed him of some of his hops, but he still admirably fills the role of able-bodied veteran reserve. In fact, most things about Cousins are admirable these days. He plays hard, he sticks up for teammates, he makes underrated winning plays, and most of all, the man is highly entertaining. Both when he is good, and when he's not so good. Take, for instance, his latest fine from the league office. It wasn't because Cousins trashed the refs, which seems to happen daily during the first-round of the playoffs. Everyone from Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid to Memphis Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins has been fined by the league office for "public criticism of the officials." But hey man, that's kid's play as far as Cousins is concerned. When he gets a fine, he does it with style. Look no further than the fine levied against Cousins on Tuesday, when the league docked him $15,000 for (drumroll please) kicking towels into the stands during the Nuggets' Game 4 home win over the Golden State Warriors. It happened after Cousins was whistled for a personal foul and made his way back to the Nuggets' bench. He threw his arms in the air, seemingly pleading to the heavens for the great injustice. Then he placed his arms behind his end, as if it was all he could do to calm himself down. As Cousins made his way back to the bench, he booted a pile of towels. He clearly had no intent of those towels making their way to the front row and hitting a jubilant fan, but that's how it played out.

You want to behave that way? Well, fine, said the NBA. But Cousins was just being Cousins. Trashing the refs in a press conference is oh so yesterday. It's basically for wimps. DeMarcus Cousins made it something worth talking about, as DeMarcus Cousins so often does with everything these days.