DeMarcus Cousins' introduction into Golden State's starting line-up gives the NBA champions yet more firepower. Mark Deeks examines how 'Boogie' will fit into the Warriors' high-octane offense.
It is fair to say that DeMarcus Cousins would not be a Golden State Warrior were it not for his injury. Even in a world where star players move in free agency far more willingly than ever before, the only world in which the four-time All-Star with career averages of 21.5 points, 11.0 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game, about to enter what should be the prime seasons of his career, only being available for the $5.337m available in the taxpayer's mid-level exception in the way that Cousins was, is one in which that player has his health still to prove.
Cousins knew this heading into last summer and opted to join the two-time defending champions, knowing he would miss at least the first half of the season. As of this past week, however, he has returned to action, and played two games for his new team, starting both.
In those two games, Cousins has averaged 18.0 minutes, 11.0 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 5.0 fouls per game. From a basic statistics point of view, it is very hard to imagine being able to do much more than that in so little an amount of time; from the most important point of view, the Warriors won both games, and by a combined 37 points.
Although he obviously will not make it himself this season, Cousins' addition gives the Warriors a five All-Star line-up. But he is the newcomer, the interloper, the one who needs to fit around the historic core four that got there before him. The scrutiny hereafter, then, will focus on if and how he can do that.
The Warriors as an offensive system are defined by the play of Stephen Curry as an individual. No statistic yet devised has illustrated this better than how the Warriors have looked without him. In 11 Curry-less games this season, the Warriors managed only a 5-6 record, having gone 17-14 in the same situation last season. While Draymond Green also missed most of the games Curry was also absent for this season, it was the injury to Curry that exposed the limitations of the team beyond him.
It is not that the Warriors do not have a system, and that they rely overly heavily upon Curry to bail them out with his literally unstoppable shooting. The Warriors' offensive system has not changed much in this four-year run of theirs, yet it has not needed to; based on cutting, picks and extra-passing, the Warriors' menu of off-ball screens, dives and choreographed passing done at too great of a speed for defenses to stay ahead of still hums like a top when Curry is around.
Rather, it is more the case that it only works if someone with the magnetism and off-ball movement of Curry is at the top of it. Not only able to get his own shot off the dribble at any time - surely the undisputed best off-the-dribble shooter in NBA history at this point - Curry also does plenty of work off the ball. So too does Klay Thompson, the other Splash Brother, who famously almost never takes a dribble. Yet when there is only one of them available, the whole becomes much easier for opponents to defend.
In the 2018 Western Conference Finals, the Houston Rockets were disciplined defensively, played tough, and took away much of the 'beautiful game' cut-and-pass-centric offensive fluidity the Warriors have long hung their hat on. When the Cleveland Cavaliers "figured out" the same Warriors formula in the last three games of the 2016 NBA Finals, forcing them to play an uglier brand of basketball, the system no longer applied. Someone was needed to surpass it. Someone other than just Steph.
Into that breach stepped Kevin Durant.
If a good defence takes away space when a player catches the ball, does a respectable job containing drives and fights hard, eventually the offensive team is going to have to resort to something more reliable and easier. That is to say, it needs someone who can score in isolation. To that end, they sought out Durant. The Warriors did not just need another Klay, a greased wheel to keep the system flowing when it was already working well. Instead, they needed someone for when it wasn't.
However, while they may have won the title anyway, the Warriors of last season were far from the unstoppable force they once were. By virtue of their titles, records and dominance, the Warriors now find themselves having to face opponents' best punches every night. Also feeling the strain of having so many excellent players having to constantly be deferential to each other also tests the solidarity with which they once swept the league.
As the Rockets - who would have won the Western Conference Finals and NBA Championship last season had they made just one more of the two dozen open threes they missed in game seven - proved, the Warriors are much more vulnerable than they were.
As the absence of Curry and resultant vast increase in mid-range shot attempts for Klay and KD earlier this season showed, the Warriors are overly reliant on Steph still, even with Durant in the fray.
And into that breach should step Cousins. His very presence diversifies the offering.
The Warriors have not offered a scoring threat at the five spot throughout this run. Andrew Bogut's scoring game left him through injury many years ago, Draymond's own scoring game is largely limited to a streaky and inefficient three-point shot, and while Damian Jones (the starting center to begin the season albeit now out for the remainder due to injury) and Jordan Bell add some finishing through their athleticism, neither creates beyond running hard.
Conversely, Cousins is as versatile of a weapon as a 'five man' that there is.
At his core, considering his wide frame and immense strength, Cousins is a paint finisher. That is how he came into the league, and something that will always befit one so large. Yet as seen in our earlier profile of Brook Lopez, the NBA as a whole is moving away from this style of play, even for those like Cousins that are built like a gasworks. And this increase in center skill level is something he too has kept pace with.
Throughout his career, Cousins has been developing both the accuracy of his jump shot, and the frequency with which he turns to it. Catalysed by the brief time he spent under George Karl, Cousins has turned what used to be long two-point jump shots (which he was only ever good at in one anomalous season) into a large ratio of above-the-break three-pointers. If one is to shoot 35-36 per cent on jump shots regardless of their range, they might as well get an extra point out of it, which is exactly what Cousins has done these last two seasons.
More important than the floor spacing, though, is the ball movement that is the foundation of the team. So, it is not a coincidence that Cousins is also a willing and talented passer, with a level of dexterity normally unbecoming of one so large. Jordan Bell's main successes with the Warriors so far have come from his extra passing and playmaking out of rolls to the basket - imagine if he could do that while also shooting, driving, posting and outmuscling.
Because of his size, Cousins is slow. It is not for nothing that aside from Cousins and the old school paint grinder that is Kevon Looney, the Warriors employ athletic front-court players. They do so, as all teams now do in the NBA's new orthodoxy, to be able to contest both the perimeter and the interior, able to quickly recover from one to the other.
As an individual, the slow and sometimes-defensively-lazy Cousins does not defend either well, and especially not both at the same time. On this end, the Warriors will be covering for him, as have each of his previous teams.
There is also obvious rust to be seen in his two games thus far, and a lack of familiarity of his ideal usage within things, given the lack of reps his injury brought about. And last season, before his injury, Cousins averaged a whopping 5.0 turnovers per game, often the result of trying to do too much.
Having faced double teams for pretty much his entire career to date, it remains to be seen whether that has created bad old habits in him that he cannot easily shake.
Nevertheless, Cousins is as good of a midseason reinforcement as a team can have. He plays hard. He sets bone-jarring screens. He passes, he shoots, he takes hits in the post, he finishes inside, he is a trailer threat, and a combination of the above should make him particularly good in the two-man game with Klay Thompson.
The Warriors have 35 remaining regular season games to iron out the kinks, but what a problem to have that is.