The Sacramento Kings may have won Monday night’s game against the Milwaukee Bucks, but they almost took a major L for Black History Month. As a part of the Lunar New Year celebration, which is the year of the monkey, they placed black shirts with purple monkeys on every seat in the arena prior to the game.

Lunar New Year celebration tonight at Sleep Train Arena. cc: @kfippin pic.twitter.com/P4AzTNuyj3

— James Ham (@James_Ham) February 2, 2016

When Kings’ player Demarcus Cousins saw the monkey tees being placed on the seats he expressed his concerns to the operations staff. One can only imagine how that conversation went, but we are sure it started with the universal question, “What the hell?” Cousins wasn’t the only person in the arena who had a problem, TV analyst Marques Johnson also questioned the t-shirts and discussed what happened on his facebook page. “I walk into the building and DeMarcus Cousins calls me over to an animated discussion he’s having with Kings operations people. He ask me, ‘Olskool, what you think about this T Shirt?’ Told him a little insensitive on 1st day of Black History Month. They pulled the shirts…”.

DeMarcus voices his displeasure and to the Kings credit they pull the Monkey T Shirts… pic.twitter.com/bHSz4KVinh

— Marques Johnson (@olskool888) February 2, 2016

Good move Kings. Year of Monkey Tees on 1 st day of Black History Month not a good look. Thanks DeMarcus… pic.twitter.com/wvqkdgdr7r

— Marques Johnson (@olskool888) February 2, 2016

Bye t-shirts pic.twitter.com/dt9DFxmuJU

— Jason Jones (@mr_jasonjones) February 2, 2016

Thankfully, the Kings got a clue and pulled the shirts before fans entered the arena. When asked about the epic fail, Kings President Chris Granger told the Sacramento Bee :” In an effort to celebrate Chinese New Year, we had some concerns about the T-shirt giveaway, so we pulled them all before the doors opened. Certainly we don’t want to offend anybody, and we acted as soon as we heard the concern.”

Thanks to Demarcus Cousins for standing up, even if it only postponed the distribution of the shirts. The Chinese Year of the Monkey starts February 8th and the Kings will redistribute them then.

DeMarcus Cousins

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