NBA family feels fallen Cousins’ pain
DeRozan among all-stars reaching out after injury ends pending free agent’s season
DeMar DeRozan was hoping for a FaceTime session with his friend some time Saturday night. Dwane Casey was sending his best wishes telepathically and through the media.
NBA players and coaches and officials were rallying behind a falling friend and colleague, because that’s what NBA players and coaches and officials do.
All-star DeMarcus Cousins of the New Orleans Pelicans had his season end — and his longer-term future become much more cloudy — in a dramatic, painful split second on Friday night that sent shock waves throughout the league.
The polarizing big man — perhaps misunderstood by the majority of casual fans — suffered a ruptured left Achilles tendon while trying to chase down a rebound of his own missed free throw in the final 10 seconds of a win over the Houston Rockets on Friday. It’s a crushing blow to him, his team and fans of the game who appreciate his abundant talents.
“That sucks,” said DeRozan, the Raptors all-star who grew to be a close friend of Cousins during their time with the United States Olympic team in Rio in 2016. “That’s my guy.”
Like so many other NBAers, DeRozan reached out by text to some of Cousins’ teammates on Friday night and was going to try to reach the injured centre on Saturday.
Minutes after the injury occurred and word leaked out about its severity, the NBA family started sending message of support, pledges of prayer and general good wishes to Cousins. While there is an intense level of competition in the league every night, there’s also a huge level of kinship among players, many of whom have been teenage teammates on AAU teams, college buddies and summer workout partners.
“You felt for him,” Raptors coach Casey said Saturday. “For the kid to go down like that and tear his Achilles when he’s having a good year. His team is going towards a playoff run. They just kind of seem like they’re gelling now. Everyone was down on them at the beginning of the season. You feel for him.”
Cousins’ reputation among many fans is that of a combative, explosive loose cannon, as likely to lead the NBA in technical fouls and ejections as in rebounds or charges drawn. But teammates past and present swear by him — “That’s a great, great guy, nothing like you think,” said DeRozan — and that should be the measure of the man.
“After being around him in Lexington at the (University of Kentucky) alumni game, he’s totally different than his persona is on the floor,” Casey said. “We all grow up and I think that’s something he’s doing now. He’s maturing and understanding the vibe that he gives, the persona he’s giving off. Hopefully he’s seeing that, like most players do.
“Everyone you talk to says he’s a great — not a good teammate, a great teammate . . . a lot of times the persona is different than the reality of who the person is.”
The basketball loss to Cousins and the Pelicans is incalculable.
The 27-year-old, voted an all-star starter by fans, players and a media panel, was poised to make his first appearance in the playoffs this spring with the Pelicans, who entered play Saturday as the sixth seed in the Western Conference and only 21⁄ games out of a home-court posi
2 tion. Cousins and Anthony Davis form the most formidable frontcourt in the league, and New Orleans was said to be actively seeking to add wing depth for a serious playoff push.
That may be on hold now, because Cousins will not only miss the rest of this season but likely the start of the 2018-19 campaign.
And the personal repercussions for the six-foot-11, 270-pound big man are shocking. He will be an unrestricted free agent in July and would have commanded a contract worth upwards of $170 million U.S., a deal that now seems unlikely.
There’s every reason to think he’ll make a full recovery, but it’s also likely he’ll have to sign a one- or two-year deal in July with a long-term megacontract at least a season away.