The Warriors yesterday signed free agent center DeMarcus Cousins to what has been reported as a one-year deal for around $5.3 million.
Cousins is still healing from injury and will likely miss the first few months of the 2018-19 season. This signing is huge for the Warriors, even if he’s only able to contribute in limited fashion. At worst, he should be able to do big things off the bench for the Warriors, especially during the playoffs. At best, he’ll play like his former self and make the Warriors even more unstoppable.
Cousins, 27, averaged 25.2 points and career highs of 12.9 rebounds and 5.4 assists to go with 1.65 steals, 1.58 blocks and 36.2 minutes in 48 games (all starts) with New Orleans before suffering a left Achilles rupture on January 26 vs. Houston. Cousins, who earned his fourth-straight All-Star appearance in 2017-18, was one of just three players to average at least 25 points and 10 rebounds per game, along with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Anthony Davis, and was the only player in the league to also average at least five assists per contest.
An eight-year NBA veteran, Cousins owns career averages of 21.5 points, 11.0 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.43 steals and 1.22 blocks in 32.3 minutes over 535 games (513 starts) with the Pelicans (2017-18) and Sacramento Kings (2010-17). Originally selected by the Kings with the fifth overall pick in the 2010 NBA Draft, the 6’11” center spent his first six-plus seasons with the franchise and ranks near the top on several of the team’s Sacramento-era (since 1985-86) statistical leaderboards, including first in rebounds (5,056), second in points (9,894), second in blocks (558), third in steals (661), fourth in minutes played (14,997) and fifth in games played (470). Cousins was named to the All-Rookie First Team in 2010-11 and to the All-NBA Second Team in both 2014-15 and 2015-16.
A native of Mobile, Ala., Cousins has helped the USA Men’s Basketball Team to gold medals at the 2014 FIBA World Cup, alongside Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, and at the 2016 Olympic Games alongside Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Thompson. In his lone collegiate season at the University of Kentucky in 2009-10, Cousins led the Wildcats to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight and garnered Associated Press First Team and John R. Wooden All-American honors.
