Love Them, Hate Them: Kings Don’t Care

Monday, February 27, 2023

Star Xavier Cooks has a simple message for the Sydney Kings’ haters … ‘talk all you like’.

Speaking to Newscorp, Cooks said an apparent social media “pile-on” against the Kings only created more buzz around basketball in Sydney, and that could only be a good thing.

“A lot of those people are just people out west bored at home and tweeting stuff,” Cooks said.

“I care when we go into an arena, and we get booed. That kind of fuels me up and gives me energy, but the Instagram and Twitter I don’t care about.”

Cooks and his teammates are preparing to take on the New Zealand Breakers in the best-of-five Championship Series, starting Friday at home, and he says he couldn’t be prouder of what his team has achieved.

The Kings are hoping to claim back-to-back Championships for just the second time in their history, in what would be their fifth ever title.

From 2003 to 2005, Sydney won three straight Championships and after a hugely challenging time since, again boasts one of the most talented rosters in recent history for NBL23.

Watch Game One between the Kings and Breakers live and free via ESPN on Kayo Freebies, 10 Peach & 10 play this Friday night from 7.30pm AEDT.

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sydney Kings star and <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL</a> MVP Xavier Cooks has taken a cheeky dig at rival fans as online hatred towards the Kings ramps up, via <a href="https://twitter.com/mattlogue7?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mattlogue7</a><a href="https://twitter.com/MickRandallHS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MickRandallHS</a> <a href="https://t.co/wrKbIPy95Q">https://t.co/wrKbIPy95Q</a></p>— Herald Sun Sport (@heraldsunsport) <a href="https://twitter.com/heraldsunsport/status/1629728059741061120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>