Site icon Side Action

Boogie Cousins Waits Three Years, Gets Kings Analyst Fired

NBA Fantasy Projections for DraftKings and FanDuel DFS lineups for daily fantasy basketball on Monday February 8 2021 featuring ownership and values for DeMarcus Cousins

LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 21: Golden State Warriors center DeMarcus Cousins (0) before the Golden State Warriors game versus the Los Angeles Lakers on January 22, 2019, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA. (Photo by Icon Sportswire)

The television broadcaster of the Sacramento Kings for 32 years, Grant Napear, has officially resigned from the position after being placed on administrative leave earlier this week.

Napear was placed on administrative leave by the Kings after this Twitter exchange with former King DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins.


Related


As an unabashed Vlade Divac STAN, I have watched more than my fair share of Sacramento Kings basketball despite being from Chicago and living there nearly my whole life so this is a rather sad end to a career which has spanned five different decades. The call, “If you don’t like that, you don’t like Sacramento Kings basketball” is one of my favorites and I always enjoyed Napear’s commentary and passion for the Kings while listening. However, if the implications of racism by former Kings players are indeed accurate then this departure is a long time coming.

While “all lives” certainly do matter, that’s not the point of the “Black Lives Matter” movement nor is it an appropriate response to it. For the most part, it’s used as a way of undermining the cause. Whether Napear was intentionally trying to undermine the movement or not is unclear, but former Kings players have come forward accusing the longtime broadcaster of racism. Cousins, Chris Webber, and Matt Barnes were all unsurprised by Napear’s response:

The intention of Cousins was clearly to bait Napear into saying exactly what he said, and this appears to be Cousins way of exacting the ultimate revenge on someone who’s he had beef with for a number of years. Cousins was barely out the door in 2017 when Napear ripped Cousins publicly after he was traded to the Pelicans.

Napear apologized for how he responded on Twitter and was supposedly sincere in a conversation with the Sacramento Bee’s Marcos Breton:

“I’m not as educated on BLM as I thought I was,” Napear said to me. “I had no idea that when I said ‘All Lives Matter’ that it was counter to what BLM was trying to get across.”

Napear was emotional on the phone and was sincere. And I believe that he didn’t know the political implications of the phrase he used.

“I’m in pain,” he said. “I’m 60 years old and I still have a lot learn.”

It’s very possible that Napear is sincere in that he didn’t know the implications behind his “All Lives Matter” response and he may have been able to survive as the Kings broadcaster if players had come to his defense and deemed it as “an unfortunate slip-up” or something along those terms. However, the lack of support from Kings players present and present made this too difficult of a situation for Napear to continue in this role.


Check us out on TWITTER, where we talk sports, share articles, and have lots of giveaways!