Eight days ago, then-New Orleans Pelicans guard Buddy Hield was kicked out of a game for the first time in his rookie NBA season.
His transgression: Hitting DeMarcus Cousins in the groin while going around the big man's offensive screen in a game at Golden 1 Center, an action officials deemed worthy of a flagrant 2 foul.
Now, Hield is linked with Cousins in another way that leaves some Kings fans wincing. Late Sunday night, the Kings traded Cousins, a three-time All-Star, along with veteran forward Omri Casspi to the Pelicans for Hield, guards Tyreke Evans and Langston Galloway, and two picks in the 2017 draft.
Of the players the Kings received, Hield is the centerpiece. A 23-year-old rookie shooting guard from the Bahamas, Hield was the sixth overall pick as a senior out of Oklahoma and was said to have been coveted then by the Kings, who ended up selecting forward Marquese Chriss with the eighth overall pick and trading him to Phoenix.
The 6-foot-4, 214-pound Hield was regarded as one of the top scorers available in last year's draft. He averaged 25 points a game his senior season and shot 50.1 percent _ 45.7 from 3 _ to earn Naismith College Player of the Year honors. His first NBA season so far has been a transition.
Hield was averaging 8.6 points in 20 minutes a game for the Pelicans while shooting 39.2 percent. He was named the Western Conference's Rookie of the Month for December, when he averaged 10.6 points a game, and over All-Star weekend scored 28 points in the Rising Stars Challenge to help the World Team to a 150-141 win.
Evans, meanwhile, is a familiar name to Kings fans. The 27-year-old guard was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2009-10 for the Kings, who drafted him fourth overall the previous summer.
Evans played his first four seasons in Sacramento, averaging 17.5 points and 4.8 assists, but toward the end of his tenure had fallen into an undefined role. When he became a restricted free agent in 2013, the Kings declined to match his offer from New Orleans and parted with Evans in a sign-and-trade deal in which they acquired guard Greivis Vasquez.
In the past two seasons, Evans has played just 51 games while undergoing three surgeries on his right knee in a nine-month span. He was averaging 9.5 points in 26 games off the bench this season for the Pelicans before Sunday's trade.
Evans is in the final year of four-year, $44 million contract he signed with the Pelicans and was due to make about $10.2 million this year, according to spotrac.com. The Kings could opt to buy out the remainder of the contract and waive Evans, who would become a free agent.
Galloway, lastly, had been the Pelicans' backup point guard after serving the same role for the New York Knicks last season. He was named to the All-Rookie team in 2014-15 after averaging 11.8 points and 3.3 assists for the Knicks but has fallen short of those numbers the past two seasons. He is in the first year of a two-year, $10.6 million deal signed with New Orleans.
Hield, Evans and Galloway join a Kings guard rotation that already includes seasoned point guards Darren Collison and Ty Lawson and shooting guards Arron Afflalo and Ben McLemore.
It remains to be seen, though, if trading the franchise's erstwhile cornerstone in Cousins signals more moves to come. The NBA's trade deadline is Thursday.
