The new ownership of the Sacramento Kings has made it clear that they want to build their franchise around DeMarcus Cousins (have fun with that), and a player with his skill set, despite his considerable baggage, will command in the neighborhood of a max contract when the time comes.
Talks were reportedly underway this week, and a deal was expected as soon as the start of training camp, which will open in Sacramento on Sept. 30.
It now appears that things may be wrapped up even sooner.
From Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee:Hearing DeMarcus Cousins’ extension with the Kings is agreed upon in principle
— Jason Jones (@mr_jasonjones) September 27, 2013
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports that the deal is a four-year, $62 million max extension, with no opt-out after year three.
From a franchise front office perspective, there’s still no good argument for handing out these max extensions a year before they become necessary.
If the Kings and Cousins didn’t agree on an extension by the Oct. 31 deadline to do so, Sacramento would have been able to match any offer Cousins would receive at the end of the season by making him a restricted free agent.
The Kings could still have given Cousins a max contract at that point after an additional season of evaluation, if that was their choice. But with the emotional wreck that Cousins has proven to be on the court in his NBA career thus far, it’s probably wise to remove the distraction of a new contract from the equation as soon as possible. For better or worse, that appears to be the decision that’s been made in Sacramento.