Is Demarcus Cousins worth the risk??

[CPK]

After watching Cousin's last night it would be pretty sick to have him with Kyrie; really, really sick actually.

I bet the price is just way too high but it's extremely tempting even with his attitude.

 

[Randolphkeys]

Apparently he covered himself up with a towel and peed in a gatorade cup mid 4th quarter tonight while on the bench... A few reports are coming out on that tonight...

Afterwards, did he drink half the piss and pour the rest on an Israeli diplomat?

 

[czvo]

I just don't think this team has the structure in place to handle a guy like Cousins right now. If this were 3-4 years down the line, and the Cavs had been in the playoffs a couple of times, then maybe. But right now, who's the vet keeping him in line? Its not Varejao if he's traded.

This team really lacks true vets. The veterans on this team are Walton, Varejao, and Boobie. None of them were ever featured players on title contenders, though they all played smaller roles. They're the only ones that know what it takes to win in this league, and their voices wouldn't hold nearly as much weight as someone like Ben Wallace (just pulling a name out of the hat).

 

[Mdog1]

Philly's pick won't be a lottery pick. Sacramento isn't going to trade Cousins for a mid to late first rounder and a bunch of geriatric veterans. There's just no conceivable way that Cousins ends up in Miami unless Miami sends Bosh to the Kings (or I guess Wade or LeBron, which won't happen). I don't see Miami pulling that move because, duh, they just won a title and there's no logic to trading away a third of their core.

In the OP it said there was uncertainty about what they wanted in return for Cousins. Someone wanted young talent/picks, and someone else wanted vets/cap. If the vets/cap party won out then Miami is in play, if not then they obviously aren't.

Miller/Chalmers/Anthony/Pittman/Philly pick for Cousins/Salmons/Garcia would save them a lot of money, provide them an adequate "real PG", and give them a pick (lotto protected, but don't know about the other restrictions), and provide the Kings with veteran leadership.

Boston could put together a much better package though, and would be just as good of a spot for him, if not better.

Don't want him here though, that could be a disaster.

 

[Zone]

In the OP it said there was uncertainty about what they wanted in return for Cousins. Someone wanted young talent/picks, and someone else wanted vets/cap. If the vets/cap party won out then Miami is in play, if not then they obviously aren't.

Miller/Chalmers/Anthony/Pittman/Philly pick for Cousins/Salmons/Garcia would save them a lot of money, provide them an adequate "real PG", and give them a pick (lotto protected, but don't know about the other restrictions), and provide the Kings with veteran leadership.

Boston could put together a much better package though, and would be just as good of a spot for him, if not better.

Don't want him here though, that could be a disaster.

I wouldn't worry about that SAC-MIA trade. How does Sacramento even save any money in that deal? The heat players are due almost $40m over the next 3 years, where the Kings players are set to earn about $29.5m over the same period.

 

[UncleDrew]

Afterwards, did he drink half the piss and pour the rest on an Israeli diplomat?

 

[KB]

http://www.hardwoodparoxysm.com/2012/12/31/demarcus-cousins-friend-to-none-friend-to-all/

DeMarcus Cousins: Friend To None, Friend To All
December 31, 2012 in by Dylan Murphy with 0 Comments

DeMarcus Cousins was suspended, and then he was suspended, and then he was suspended. Then he was not-definitely reinstated from that not-so-indefinite suspension, a mostly clean slate with a warning label in tiny, inconsequential print.

Don’t do it again.

Last week, post-suspension – when he was still sort of suspended – he was forbidden from traveling with the team to Portland. But through all of this, through Paul Westphal and Keith Smart, Sacramento continues to ineffectively grapple with a larger question, or really to draw a line. How much DeMarcus Cousins is worth DeMarcus Cousins?

Talent is chemistry’s great equalizer. No one particularly enjoys playing with Kobe Bryant; winning is just a nice consolation prize, or at least enough for Pau Gasol to withstand his place beneath the bus. LeBron James was nearly left off the ’08 Olympic team for his disrespectful immaturity. But he wasn’t, and only earned himself a talking to, which invariably led to him gaining bits of humility; though “The Decision” still happened. This past summer, teams were lining up to whisk away Dwight Howard’s indecisive baggage. Because morals give way to victories, especially when the latter comes in bunches. And it will always be easier to exercise our moral authority over the likes of the lesser productive. A reeling Deron Williams, say.

DeMarcus Cousins isn’t too talented, and he isn’t less talented, either. But he’s Sacramento’s best player, and the allure of potential is still too much to resist. Plenty of people have already wrestled with the DeMarcus Cousins question, failing to arrive at a consensus. He could be traded or he could remain in Sacramento. Keith Smart could be on the hot seat or he could be safe. It’s all very confusing, morally or otherwise, and a lot of good and smart people just don’t know what the hell to do.

Most of these situations usually sort themselves out one way or another. A franchise does some moral grandstanding because the victories can afford it, or a player backs himself into a corner – cut, trade, reputation suicide, whatever. And so with DeMarcus Cousins, somehow, even if we can’t put our finger on it quite yet. But this isn’t about a solution or a way to deal with Problem Players or drawing the line between tolerable and rampant team-imploding. Sports are winning, or more simply, not losing. At a young age, there are soccer moms and cheering and postgame Krispy Kreme doughnuts and equal playing time. But then the little ones hit 10 years old, or 11 or 12 or whatever line your town has drawn, and adults become children and children become adults. These new adult-kids are divided and picked and classified – the good, the OK and the bad – and we go from there. Because it’s time to start winning, and fairness isn’t actually a thing. And it continues, for a while: junior varsity, varsity, AAU, Division III, Division II, Division I, never-ending stratified distributions of talent, winners and losers.

This whole thing, winning, it’s primal. Because it’s more than winning. It wasn’t just that Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks won. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, The Miami Heat, LeBron James, they all lost, defeated, the lesser, not winning. That was barbaric gratification, the pleasure of vengeance and retribution, and it felt really damn good when it happened. The other accessories, careers and trades and internet forum discussion and the ESPN NBA Trade Machine and all of that, it’s all winning, or winning-seeking. Everything sports-related is a microcosm for winning in some way. Even the dynamics of a team, which tries to win together, pushes and pulls and tugs for and against itself constantly. Who has more playing time, who has less playing time, who starts, who comes off the bench, who scores more points, who grabs more rebounds, who makes more money. Individual victories without detracting, tangibly, from Team.

The Sacramento Kings are not winning, and everyone remotely connected with the organization is really upset about it. Their record is 11-19. Their record last year was 22-44. Their record in ’10-’11 was 24-58. Their record in ’09-’10 was 25-57. Their record in ’08-’09 was 17-65. Losing breeds crazy most of the time, firings and complaining and trades and angry fans and endless complaining. Everyone’s uptight, wondering why winning can’t just happen, just like that, just like everyone else. Sacramento in particular hasn’t won in a long time. They last made the playoffs in ’05-’06, but were last championship-relevant in ’03-04. The Kings of those years with Mike Bibby, Doug Christie, Peja Stojakovic, Chris Webber and Vlade Divac, they were fluidly basketball with passing and sharing and winning The Right Way. These Kings, they’re not very good. Their best player is a troubled star. Their second best player is hurt and doesn’t seem to fit into any long-term basketball plans. They’re fighting the present, compounded with the past, and emotions are going haywire.

Enter DeMarcus Cousins, pacifier of exactly nothing. He’s a guy who’s really good at his job that’s prone to irrational outbursts of anger. We want there to be more to it than that, a problem with a yet to be discovered neatly folded solution. But it is more than that too, more fundamental, the prism through which we admire and glare at athletes. That we wouldn’t be DeMarcus Cousins if we were professional athletes. We would be better. More grateful, team-oriented, humble, aw-shucks happy, content in our fortune, sports for a living. That’s a thing that everyone wants, or at the very least at some point wanted. Because there’s an inherent yet invalid assumption built in to the athlete and sport as business or job, that it is neither of these things. It’s a game played by players, and they just so happened to be paid millions of dollars.

Except sport is professional. The pressures of an overbearing boss, outperforming your salary relative to the business, cohesion with co-workers, all of that. There just happen to be a lot of people peeking into the office all the time. But the scope of the analogy applies to the malcontents too, in that plenty of people trudge to work every day unhappy with their jobs. And so should DeMarcus Cousins, they say. And then they say that he’s 22 years old and will mature, transform even, into not DeMarcus Cousins. But we want DeMarcus Cousins too, just without DeMarcus Cousins. But you can’t have DeMarcus Cousins without DeMarcus Cousins, either. DMC is a bully, physically overwhelming, a possibly crazy person with basketball shoes on his feet. In a 94 x 50 box that whole persona works; really well, in fact. Even if that means he hits O.J. Mayo where it hurts every once in a while, well whatever. It’s a part of his irreplaceable nasty and it’s the small sacrifices, sometimes.

And that is winning with and for DeMarcus Cousins. Some players don’t have an off switch, because some players are people and players all wrapped up into one. This particular can of whoopass is not resealable. DeMarcus Cousins is out there, being DeMarcus Cousins. The Sacramento Kings are out there too, but they’re just losing. If they happened to surround Cousins with good players, for winning games, the prism through which we observed his volatility would adapt accordingly. DeMarcus Cousins would still be DeMarcus Cousins, but it would be an edge. A good thing.

 

[UncleDrew]

http://www.hardwoodparoxysm.com/2012/12/31/demarcus-cousins-friend-to-none-friend-to-all/

That's a HUGE red flag...having second thoughts on wanting this guy.

 

[oasis05]

We're rolling out freaking tyler zeller. I'll take 16 and 10 and some fart. Cousins is one of the premier centers like him or not. Cavs probably don't have the assets to aquire him though. I don't think cousins is worth a top 3 pick in this draft.

 

[YuenglingGator]

Wow Cousins is on quite the tear.

He's played 4 games in the last 5 days:

MPG: 34.25
PPG: 24.5
RPG: 15.25
APG: 3.75
BLK: 0.5
STL: 1.75
TO: 1.75
FG: 9.75 / 18.5 = 52.7%
FT: 5 / 6.5 = 77%

Oh yeah, and this doesn't include his Triple-Double game.

 

[abraxas]

I know he's damaged goods, but this reported Celtics deal is horrid - centered around Jeff Green, Sullinger and Courtney Lee. We could easily beat that one, or at least get involved 3-way to get him to another team.

 

[TheAdmin]

He'll be traded right before the Maloofs sell the team and that could be sooner rather then later.

And to answer the question, yes he is worth the risk but he's not worth the price it would take to acquire him.

Let the trade winds blow as the Maloofs are about to sell the team.

 

[pr26]

Let the trade winds blow as the Maloofs are about to sell the team.

I'm wondering two things:

1. Would the Cavs be more interested in trading for someone like Cousins knowing that we will likely be keeping Andy now for the full season? Having a veteran presence would be important in taking on such a high risk player.

2. Do the Cavs even have the assets to nab Cousins without giving up AV?

This is probably a move I'm more interested in than the Cavs FO.

 

[TheAdmin]

1. No. This team is being built on good guys with no warts.
2. Yes. They have the assets to make a deal even without Andy, although the price would be high.

 

[Goldin Brown]

I don't think Cousins is truly available but the kid is amazingly talented. I would love to have him, but I doubt we would be able to hold onto him for too long, I think he'd bolt the first chance he got. I bet he won't reach his potential for another 5 years or so anyway, has a lot of maturing to do. Will probably be passed around a lot before he finds the right team. I don't think now is the time to try and get him.