Time to Boogie gets close
Kerr said Cousins will start at center when he debuts next week
After 11 months of frustration, determination and progress, DeMarcus Cousins finally has some clarity about his future. Cousins, who hasn’t played since tearing his left Achilles tendon last January, confirmed Thursday that he is eyeing Jan. 18 at the Clippers for his Warriors debut. “It’ll be a lot of emotions, honestly,” Cousins said. “I don’t think an- ybody can ever understand this unless they’ve experienced it themselves. It’ll be a lot of emotions. It’ll be a big day for me.”
Will Cousins start or come off the bench in his first game? “He’ll start,” coach Stever Kerr said. Cousins along with Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, will make the Warriors the first team since the 1975-76 Boston Celtics to start five All- Stars from the previous season.
Having five All- Stars on the floor would seem to present some obvious problems for a team and a coach.
“I’m not thinking of it in those terms. If you look at it like fantasy basketball, then you’re immediately on the wrong track,” Kerr said. “Basketball is not about putting five AllStars out there. It’s fitting them together. The puzzle has to fit.”
As of now, the puzzle pieces are scattered on the floor. Kerr and his staff have brainstormed how to assemble it. The Warriors (27-14) have
four more games to figure it out before Cousins’ anticipated return.
“Everything is on the table. We’ll have to figure out what the rotation looks like and how many minutes he can play,” Kerr said. “He’ll have to play around with it. The minutes, combinations, sets, we haven’t had a player like him here before. It will be new. It won’t be as simple to plug him in and he’ll fit right in. We’ll play through him some, but there will be a period where we all have to adapt. Fortunately, we’re halfway through the year. We have a lot of games to figure this out.”
Cousins also had plenty of time to figure out his return date.
He admitted “it was all over the place” amid his desire to return as soon as he felt comfortable.
The Bay Area News Group’s Logan Murdock reported that Cousins initially hoped to play during the Warriors’ five-game trip Nov. 29-Dec. 7, but the Warriors’ coaching staff and training staff decided otherwise.
“There’s not really a point in getting into what date we wanted, but we ended up finding this date,” Cousins said.
“It was a battle between myself, the training staff and the guys at the top. Eventually we all got on the same page. We settled for that date.”
Saying “we should give ourselves some leeway on either side,” Kerr suggested the “possibility” of Cousins making his debut on Wednesday against New Orleans at Oracle Arena, pitting Cousins against his most-recent former team, one that declined to give him the max offer he had hoped to receive last summer. According to Kerr, it’s also “a possibility” that Cousins makes his debut Jan. 21 against the Lakers, which might coincide with LeBron James’ return from a groin injury.
Wouldn’t Cousins love to play against the Pelicans and give them a dish served cold?
“I’m past that in my point of life. I’m just glad to be back on the floor,” Cousins said. “I’m not looking for a vengeance game or anything for headlines or anything like that. I’ll be glad to be back on the floor playing the game I love to play. I can’t care less who it is. I really don’t care.”
After averaging 21.5 points in eight season with Sacramento (2010- 2017) and New Orleans, how does Cousins expect to look with the Warriors?
“It’s obvious I won’t be taking as many shots as I have in the past,” Cousins said. “It’s an adjustment for everybody. I believe that’s pretty obvious.”
What isn’t as obvious: to what extent Cousins can emulate how he used to play.
After all, Kerr believes Cousins was playing the best basketball of his career with the Pelicans before the injury Jan. 26, 2017. Which version of Cousins will the Warriors see in his first game?
“I’m not really looking forward to anything in particular. This is the next step for me,” Cousins said. “Just the rehab process. I’m getting acclimated with the guys, finding my wind, finding my legs. I’m not expecting to come out and score 50 points or any- thing like that. It’ll be great if I could. But that’s not my expectations. Just coming out and being a part of the team. That’s good enough for me.”
All of which underscores the uncertainty the Warriors are facing with Cousins hey know he is starting, but they don’t know how he will adjust his role to accommodate four other All Stars. They know he will get minutes with the second unit, filling David West’s former role as the team’s offensive playmaker, but they do not know the exact mix of scoring and passing. They know Cousins will give the Warriors a true center after lacking one since Damian Jones’ season- ending injury last month. But they don’t how they will adjust their perimeter defense.
“We’re adding another great shooter to the mix and adding a guy who is powerful inside and is a great passer. He’s not a runner and not a sprinter. That’ll be a little different,” Kerr said. “We played at a high pace here over the years. I imagine he will be in a trail position on the break at times, which could be pretty good, especially considering the shooter he is at the top of the key. These are all sort of unknowns we’ll have to experiment with, so we’ll see.”
Beyond Cousins’ credentials, the Warriors believe he can accelerate his learning curve because he has been around the team since the season started. He already has some familiarity with the four other All- Stars, having played alongside them with Team USA. And he has become acquainted with the Warriors’ playbook and culture since signing a oneyear deal at the $5.2 million mid-level exception.
In other words, this isn’t some guy, star or not, coming in at the trade deadline.
“It’s better than that because he’s been here all year watching us play. He knows a lot of the actions we like to run, and he’s familiar with the guys,” Kerr said. “The hard thing about joining a team mid-season is when you don’t know anybody. He knows everybody and everybody knows him, so it’s an easier transition. As I said, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be an easy one.”
Cousins did a few things to make that adjustment easier. He did a lot of his rehab around the team. He traveled with the Warriors whenever his rehab scheduled allowed. He sat on the bench during games.
“I see a lot of things I can help with and areas I can fit right in. There’s also some areas I have to work my way towards being a part of,” Cousins said. “I finished one step and that’s completing the rehab and getting back to the floor. Now there are more steps ahead. That’s building the chemistry and finding myself on the team. It’s all finding a comfortable place and playing together.”