LOS ANGELES — With DeMarcus Cousins playing his first game in nearly a year — and his first game ever for Golden State — Warriors coach Steve Kerr understood exactly what was on the line in Friday’s contest against the Clippers.
Either “we’re going to be unbeatable or we’re going to be in big trouble,” Kerr said at the team’s morning shootaround at Staples Center.
Kerr was joking — poking fun at the perpetual national narrative machine that surrounds the NBA’s most-discussed team — but sometimes there’s truth in humor.
And while I don’t want to fall for the trap, but have to say it: with the addition of Cousins, the already impossibly talented Warriors really did look unbeatable on Friday.
Simply put: Boogie’s first game in 357 days was everything Golden State could have wanted and everything that the rest of the NBA fretted.
The Warriors’ big offseason acquisition looked like an All-Star in Los Angeles. He provided the NBA’s best team with a dynamic at center they’ve never had before and presented more unsolvable questions to opponents already flummoxed by the Warriors’ five other Hall of Famers.
Cousins was a cheat code Friday — for significant portions of his time on the floor, he was the best player on the court. Remember, he shared that court with Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson.
That’s not fair.
And here’s the absurd part: moving forward, Cousins should only be expected to improve.
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In 15 minutes of play Friday, Cousins scored 14 points, pulled down six rebounds, dished out five assists, made three 3-pointers, and was a plus-21. Just as important: his insertion into the Warriors’ systems looked seamless.
There was so much to be encouraged about — too much good stuff to brush off as a lucky first game: Cousins was clearly a step (or two) slow — evidenced by the fact he fouled out of the game in those 15 minutes, an accomplishment upon itself — but he ran the court with aplomb and his court vision (as evidenced by his assists) was sterling.
Even when it was hard for him — he was clearly gassed after three-or-so minutes of a furiously paced game and never looked smooth while running — he made things look easy.
So what happens when he’s in game shape and things actually become easy?
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Given that he didn’t play in a year, you’d be forgiven if you forgot that Cousins was the original “unicorn” center — a singular talent at the position — going into his Warriors debut.
And even if you did remember how good he was, the injury itself — the kind that would have likely ended the 270-pounder’s career in past decades — and the relatively expedited timeline of return made it easy to cast doubt on if Cousins could ever return to his top form.
He’s not back to that level right now — he’s not even close.
In fact, he might never get back to the level he was in New Orleans, where he averaged 25 points, 13 rebounds, and five assists per game on 58 percent true shooting.
But if Friday was baseline — and there’s every reason to believe it was — he’s already better than the vast majority of NBA centers.
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Constant foul trouble and that not-up-to-par conditioning conspired to hold Cousins to those 15 minutes, but the short bursts of action served as stark reminders of Cousins’ unique combination of power and skill.
He was nearly unstoppable in the classic back-to-the-basket big man role against the Clippers, but he also has the touch from beyond the arc to be considered a third Splash Brother. And that 3-point shot Friday night was no fluke — Cousins beat Quinn Cook, who is in the league because of his dead-eye shooting, in an around-the-world 3-point shooting contest at Friday’s shootaround. The dude’s jumper is money.
Kerr often speaks of Curry’s “gravity” — the attention that he demands from opposing defenses. Cousins hinted on Friday he can bring that same sort of gravity to the center position.
The Clippers that out the hard way. They passively double-teamed Cousins in the post for most of the game, and when they didn’t, they were burned.
For instance: After Cousins worked over Marcin Gortat and the smaller Montrezl Harrell with his back to the basket the low post in the first three quarters, the Clippers subbed in one of the few players in the league denser than Cousins — the 7-foot-3 Boban Marjanovic — to guard him at the start of the fourth quarter.
But after the change, Cousins didn’t go back to the block to body up Boban — he simply stepped behind the 3-point arc, and the plodding Marjanovic didn’t even try to run out to defend him. Cousins’ back-to-back 3-pointers blew the game open.
You can’t teach that kind of talent, and there really isn’t a defense to stop it. (Unless you have a Draymond Green on your team.)
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Take a moment to consider this question — as the rest of the NBA will have to reckon with it: If teams need to double-team Cousins when he’s out of shape and playing on a greaseless wheel, what happens when he’s healthy and in-shape enough to really control a game?
It’s already silly for the opposition to double-team him — that means they’re leaving one of the Warriors’ four other All-Stars open (ok, it’s really just Green) — but surely they cannot triple team him and leave Thompson, Durant, or Curry open. Right?
“If they keep doing it, I might get 10 assists,” Cousins told me after the game.
First, he’ll have to play more than 15 minutes.
The Warriors have a plan for that — give him two or three weeks.
Cousins will have to continue to be patient.
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Cousins said in the locker room after the game that his near-year off felt like a decade, and it’s no secret he pressed the Warriors to come back earlier than Friday.
In a way, the Warriors saved him from himself. Then again, that’s why he signed with the Warriors in the first place: To re-establish himself as a top-dollar free agent, Cousins needed to sign with a team that wouldn’t rush him onto the court before he was ready and could also help him rehabilitate his poor reputation around the league.
He’s been a model citizen in the locker room — his teammates and coaches aren’t putting on an act when they say they like having him around — and he looked as ready as could be expected on Friday.
There are six months to go in the season — plenty of time for things to come off the rails — but at the moment, it’s hard to see a circumstance where Cousins doesn’t land a nine-figure contract in July.
In the meantime, with this kind of unfair talent in tow, the Warriors’ goal for the rest of the season is simple.
Said Draymond Green: “Beat everybody’s ass. Straight like that.”
