Ok this is a reach but Cousins reminds me of a way more athletic and versatile Divac in the paint... Vlad would use his craftiness to get around guys for this unorthodox layups and hook shots. divac didn't pin guys with his strength under the basket... he spun around them. Up and under them.
Cousins can post up. I've seen it. Mike Malone made this a regular thing and didn't allow Cousins to shoot 3's... and Cousins was having at the time career numbers...
Cousins is in fact on of our best 3 pt shooters, he can indeed take guys off the dribble to the basket. But all I'm saying is he's gotten a little to out of control with this dribbling from the 3pt line to the basket.
Again. I'm not saying he can't do it... I'm not saying he should be cut off from doing it.
I'm saying it's out of control right now. He needs to be reigned in and look for better opportunities not every time.
And yes lastly he needs to get back to a baby hook. He's had it in the past. He will have wide open teammates if he gets down there with his back to the basket... teams HAVE to send a double... wide open shots... hell cousins can get thru 2 guys. But that's just easy Kings offense if we did it more.
...except it's not "out of control." there seems to be a rather large gulf between what you're
feeling about cousins game and what
is actually happening on the court. cousins is having the best season of his career, the most dominant season of his career, and the most efficient season of his career. and even though he's playing away from the basket much more than he did under mike malone, he's still averaging more free throw's per game than when malone coached him, attempts that he likely wouldn't get as often if he were playing in a more back-to-the-basket style.
as for carelessness, on a per game basis, boogie's turnovers are actually fairly low when you account for his astronomically high usage rate. among those who are top-5 in usage, russell westbrook and james harden both own a significantly higher turnover percentage than demarcus cousins, and they're both mvp candidates. this doesn't mean that demarcus can't further improve in the area of ball protection, but the necessity for improvement in this area pales in comparison to the impact that cousins is having this season as a 6'11, 270 pound face-up big man.
at this point, there just aren't a lot of flaws in cousins' game, and the flaws that are there almost exclusively fall into the mental toughness and maximum effort categories. cousins has improved in his penchant for complaining to officials, but he still lets missed calls (or the perception of missed calls) affect his effort on the court. personally, i find this criticism of cousins to be a bit overstated, but it's a plenty valid criticism to level at him. i do have to scratch my head, however, over complaints about how he's being utilized, on offense in particular. the stats and the eye test simply do not bear out the notion that joerger is employing his superstar big man incorrectly.
edit: by the way, this is all coming from a poster who used to prefer seeing cousins used as a power player. but the game has evolved, and though i may long for the days when every whoever on the court wasn't compelled to shoot three-pointers, credit to demarcus for evolving along with the league. he's learned how best to maximize his
many skills to suit the contemporary nba.
