Report: Celtics working on deal to bring in DeMarcus Cousins

LOLOLOL. Why in god's name would they leak THAT garbage ass package?

If anything, that would hurt his value if they even considered that trash.

 

That moment when people think a BIG MAN who is scoring at the efficiency and rate of Rudy Gay is somehow a good player right now.

 

I think y'all would be incredibly surprised at how many NBA players would average at least 16 PPG on 15 shots the way Cousins does.

Averaging as many points as you jack up is generally considered terrible efficiency lol.

Here's a list (ty basketball reference) of players who average at least 15 shot attempts a game like Cousins. Notice that with about two exceptions (Felton & Bargnani) the players on that list are all better than DeMarcus Cousins. Most of them are MUCH better and are among the league's elite players. Yet only Cousins dares to take that many shot attempts with such a low TS%. It really wasn't surprising that the Kings played better when Cousins was suspended and wasn't throwing away their possessions with his own shot attempts.

And then we factor in the headcase element? It's not like Sacramento would really be giving up much. I would like that deal for both teams, but only because I don't have this convoluted sense of Cousins' "potential" as his numbers plummet in his third year rather than improve. I guess I also have just seen more than my share of chuckers on bad teams before.

I would like the deal for both teams, but maybe in some sense, I also like it because it's a realistic appraisal of Cousins' true worth: not much.

 

I'm also smiling right now as I remember posters in another thread clucking over a 30/20 night by Cousins not too long ago against a Raptors team that featured Amir Johnson (6'9" 210 pounds) at center and Landry Fields (6'7" 215 pounds) at power forward.

 

Elite rebounder.

List of players in their 20's who's TR% is 18.9% or higher.

http://www.basketball-reference.com...c5comp=gt&c6mult=1.0&c6stat=&order_by=trb_pct

 

His rebounding, passing for a big, and his at times impeccable footwork make him one of the most enticing bigs in the world. If he can reign in his shooting, he could be a monster.

 

We can ignore what Cousins is worst at and focus on what he's supposedly best at if you'd like. I don't think anyone questions his rebounding ability by consensus, though I would argue that they probably should.. For instance, outrebounding a stickman tweener and Landry Fields playing out of position is not *that* impressive in the grand scheme of things.

Likewise, it's not impressive when a player pads his stats by rebounding his own miss.

It's also a bit of a fallacy that rebounding ability "improves" with age instead of just a boost in minutes. It's actually one of the few things that translates almost immediately from the college and high school levels to the pro game. So there's no real rebounding "upside" going on there. Any improvement from Cousins would have to come offensively and defensively.

And that's where the first problem begins, because the issue is that he's trash when it comes to scoring the basketball. Which...how can I put this delicately, tends to be important in the game of basketball? It also tends to be important to teams that the players they intend to pay star money to can actually operate efficiently on a whole other half of the basketball court. This board relentlessly rags on Rudy Gay for being an inefficient chucker and shooting 41% from the field. I wish I knew why different rules were in play for a center who shoots under 43% from the field. If somebody just likes a player and feels sentimental about him, fine, but let's at least be consistent with our critiques here.

The second problem begins on the other half of the basketball court, because every metric we have for determining how a player performs defensively--yes, even while we live in a world where defensive metrics each have shortcomings of their own--Boogie Cousins is a demonstrably poor defender.

Those are terrible qualities in a frontcourt player, to be honest. I think you could get Boogie Cousins production by playing a rebounder like Reggie Evans 30 minutes and allowing him to take an astonishing-considering-his-low-skill-level 15+ shots a game. Would that win you many basketball games? Probably not! And then congratulations, you're the new Sacramento Kings! Yay!

 

Seems pretty unfounded. It's unclear where you get this idea, since most of Cousins' paltry 2.7 assists come from him flipping the ball to a wing player while Cousins camps at the top of the key. That wing player will then immediately crank a contested shot, and maybe it goes in one time out of 6, because that's the kind of utter f***kball the Kings run for offense. The other 1 assist or so comes from Cousins hilariously getting it in his head that he is a faceup midrange player, only to discover that he is too slow to drive around his defender, upon which he gets flustered and kicks the ball out. Then the ball is bobbled because his pass was bad, nearly turned over, and then is heaved over the arms of 3 defenders right as the shot clock expires, and maybe it miraculously goes in one time out of 6 then, too. This is the poetry of the Kings' offense when you have the great Demarcus Cousins as your hub.

There are some very good passing centers in the NBA right now:

Greg Monroe
Marc Gasol
Joakim Noah
Anderson Varejao
Al Horford

...just to name a few.

Is Cousins a better passer than these guys? Than any of these guys? Of course not. Somewhere in the middle of the list, after we've named about 15 other centers in a league of 30 teams, we have DeMarcus Cousins.

 

The thing about those contracts is that they're not that onerous considering Sacramento's position. The Maloofs are such cheap idiots that they often end up having to overpay for players anyway at the end of the free agency period, not necessarily to retain them, but to bring their payroll past the salary floor.

Long story short, there is a minimum outlay all teams must spend on player salaries each season. So you can't just have a team of all rookies on small scale contracts and players on the veteran minimum, for example, while you sit there hoarding a gazillion unspent dollars in cap space. The Maloofs are so close to that scenario every year, however, that they often are required to take on more salary under league rules.

Incidentally, this is why the Warriors signed the OG Boogie Cousins, Kwame Brown, to a one-year, 7 million dollar contract last season. I recall people getting really upset about that, but it was a deliberate overpay because the Warriors would have been under the salary floor themselves.

So those fat contracts are surprisingly desirable to an extent, especially when it comes to a franchise that can't attract free agents and has little use for cap flexibility, and whose team logo might as well be the symbol for poison. You know:



I'm almost certain I saw this is on the side of the Kings' practice facility.

 

No real downside for Boston. Hell, if Sac is giving him away, Morey should at least kick the tires.

 

The Celtics aren't making any move right now as the Four Horsemen are playing.

I r e l a n d....

Today is the Day.

 

I copied this from another blog.

 

Spoiler

If anything, the Kings offered Evans and Cousins for Rondo and this was the Celtics low-ball counter-offer...but after the Dwight trade nothing can surprise me.

 

We weren't even projected to be in the play-offs this season, Morey's game-plan has always been to acquire two stars and then build a core around them and compete.

Cousins wouldn't make us contenders this season, and perhaps not even the next, but if he kept improving given his huge upside and had a proper supporting cast around him with a perimeter superstar in Harden instead of the wasteland in Sacramento than we could become perennial contenders.

 

That's not a bad hall for the Lakers... And Kings...

 

For Centers, Demarcus Cousins has the 6th highest APG in the NBA, in only 30 minutes a game, and he turns it over less than both Joakim Noah and Greg Monroe. For anyone that has seen him play, he certainly has talented hands and vision for his size. Let's not get carried away here, he isn't Brad Miller or Vlade Divac, but it is an interesting nuance that could be better used by a different coach, a coach with a system.

 

In 4 games in January against

1. Detroit
2. Cleveland
3. Toronto
4. Brooklyn

Demarcus Cousins is averaging
24.5 PPG
15.3 RPG
3.8 APG
1.8 TPG
52.7 FG%

22 years old. If he is a horrible player, which he certainly can be, he is still a very unusual, sometimes special, talent. A talent that is very difficult to stay away from. And again, there is always hope for a guy that plays hard, which he certainly does.

 

This looks made up by some Lakers fan. Robinson, Thornton, Brooks and Hayes for Gasol and whatever pick the Lakers may have in 2058. It makes no sense for the Kings.

 

This is not the superstar you are looking for:

 

Really, talk about highway robbery.

Patrick Patterson and Marcus Morris is already worth Boston's offer or more. Throw in a couple of draft picks.

Celtics need to get more athletic and PP and MM would be great for Rondo and Boston's system.