After having 1 full day to cool down, here's what I think went down:
Kings were always on the fence with trading Cousins. Vlade decided to give Cousins 3/4th of a year under Joerger to prove that he can change his ways and attitude. Starting off, I don't think Cousins is a good teammate. The guy tried to fight Stauskas on a plane. He's also a horrible leader. His demeanor and body language on the court has always been bad. The Kings were hoping that he could improve on the intangibles this year. Hoping he could show that he's capable of leading his team to the playoffs.
Fast forward, Cousins has a poor run-in with the media guys. He's involved in an off-court incident with Barnes. He received his 17th tech, and we're only at 3/4th of the season. He continues to show poor attitude on the floor. Staying back and arguing with refs. Not running back on defense. Not keeping his composure, etc. I think these problems this year, are a little over-looked because of recency bias. The Kings have gone on a hot, but unsustainable hot-streak.
Let's just start by looking at Cousins as a player. Yes he's a dominant force, but he's also extremely ball dominant. His offense requires a high usage, and low ball movement. When the ball gets to Cousins, it stops. Cousins is arguably one of the best passing big men, but he's a guy who does a lot of pre-determined passes. We see this happen when he gets the ball in the high-post, and all he's doing is standing there and scanning for players to get open. Other times, we see him attack the rim immediately after he gets a pass. He already has it set in his mind on what he's going to do before he gets the ball. He's not an instinctive passer who can fit in a Spurs or Warriors-type offense. It hurts because this is the trend that the NBA is headed towards.
Then paying him $200million for the next 5 years? I think that's an even harder pill to swallow. He's going to get the max regardless, but we'd be giving him a super-max, and I don't know if his contract would be tradeable.
Kings decided mid-way through the seasons that they wanted to move on. We didn't see much leadership growth from him. He became a much dominant player on the floor, but his attitude and all of the intangibles just weren't there. Kings planned on trading him.
Unfortunately, the rest of the NBA wasn't hot on Cousins at all. They all saw the same thing Vlade did. Talented player who's a immature headcase. We got crapty offers, and by the time rumors were out about Cousins being potentially traded, the Kings couldn't back out anymore. The more they waited, the more other teams would start low-balling. Buddy Hield+1st round pick was the best offer on the table, and the Kings took it. We all assumed that his value would be sky high, but in reality, it wasn't.
no real conspiracy... unless you want to think that the Kings are looking for Luka Doncic in next year's draft.
I think the Kings just didn't want Cousins anymore.