DeMarcus Cousins Watch, 2021-22 season (was: Boogie to the Bucks!)

Mr. S£im Citrus

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#61
#61
Insomniacal Fan said:
- Cousins would have grown into a generational talent if the team was better designed around him
- Cousins needed a backup so he could play fewer minutes/games and extend his career.

I have a hard time squaring those two statements with each other. A 30 minute per game player is not going to win the MVP.
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That literally happened, two seasons ago.

Giannis Antetokounmpo won back-to-back MVPs, and didn't average over 33 minutes a game, either season. A case could be made that his game got to the next level, when Budenholzer reduced his minutes. Curry also averaged less than 33 minutes, when he won his first MVP award.

Fewer minutes means a fresher star, down the stretch. It means less fatigue, less wear and tear, less of a likelihood that a player is going to become injury prone.
 
steelevt

steelevt

All-Star
#63
#63
Mr. S£im Citrus said:
If Jokic were as "can't miss" as you say, he wouldn't have been a second-round pick. He may have always had the potential to be great, but his coaches had something to do with him actually reaching it.
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naw, nba players are like fruit, you just gotta wait it out til they get ripe and bam, they're MVPs.
 
Insomniacal Fan

Insomniacal Fan

Starter
#64
#64
Mr. S£im Citrus said:
That literally happened, two seasons ago.

Giannis Antetokounmpo won back-to-back MVPs, and didn't average over 33 minutes a game, either season. A case could be made that his game got to the next level, when Budenholzer reduced his minutes. Curry also averaged less than 33 minutes, when he won his first MVP award.

Fewer minutes means a fresher star, down the stretch. It means less fatigue, less wear and tear, less of a likelihood that a player is going to become injury prone.
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Well, 2019-2020 was sort of an aberration of a season, don't you agree?

Here's a histogram of MVP winners vs MPG over league history

mp-mvp-histo.png

You found the lowest MVP MPG with Giannis over on the far left. And you have 5 or so other examples in league history of MVPs playing less.

What's the magic number that extends Cousins' career?
- At 34 minutes per game there are only 4 MVPs that played less
- At 33 minutes per game there are 3
- At 32 minutes per game there's just *Giannis from the pandemic "season"

I think that at 30 minutes per game he'd probably would have had a longer career, but I don't think that's compatible with him being an all-time great.
 
S

serbiangoat

Starter
#65
#65
Mr. S£im Citrus said:
If Jokic were as "can't miss" as you say, he wouldn't have been a second-round pick. He may have always had the potential to be great, but his coaches had something to do with him actually reaching it.
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Where did I say he was a can't miss prospect no one on the planet knew he was going to be doing what he is. The reality is his insane skillset/mindset/heavy frame/.IQ combined to somehow work in the NBA. You can't teach elite passing and feel for the game. The fitness staff probably helped him far more than Malone did to get his ass in shape.
 
S

serbiangoat

Starter
#66
#66
Insomniacal Fan said:
- Cousins would have grown into a generational talent if the team was better designed around him
- Cousins needed a backup so he could play fewer minutes/games and extend his career.

I have a hard time squaring those two statements with each other. A 30 minute per game player is not going to win the MVP.

I think player development and health is mostly the player’s responsibility, as they have the most skin in the game there.
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Cousins lack of IQ and impulse control pretty much stopped him becoming a winning player add to that literally zero post game (he had it but never used it) on a regular basis or go to post move pretty much lead to him injuring himself trying to dribble drive from the 3 point line and playing in high tempo teams.
 
AleksandarN

AleksandarN

Starter
#67
#67
serbiangoat said:
Where did I say he was a can't miss prospect no one on the planet knew he was going to be doing what he is. The reality is his insane skillset/mindset/heavy frame/.IQ combined to somehow work in the NBA. You can't teach elite passing and feel for the game. The fitness staff probably helped him far more than Malone did to get his ass in shape.
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I bet if you asked Jokic he would definitely say Malone contributed a lot for his success
 
Insomniacal Fan

Insomniacal Fan

Starter
#68
#68
Insomniacal Fan said:
Well, 2019-2020 was sort of an aberration of a season, don't you agree?

Here's a histogram of MVP winners vs MPG over league history

View attachment 10878

You found the lowest MVP MPG with Giannis over on the far left. And you have 5 or so other examples in league history of MVPs playing less.

What's the magic number that extends Cousins' career?
- At 34 minutes per game there are only 4 MVPs that played less
- At 33 minutes per game there are 3
- At 32 minutes per game there's just *Giannis from the pandemic "season"

I think that at 30 minutes per game he'd probably would have had a longer career, but I don't think that's compatible with him being an all-time great.
Click to expand...
combined.png

An average play time of 30-35 minutes is a lot more likely to net somebody the title of 6th man of the year than MVP, with 20 examples to show for that.

This is not to imply I think that Cousins was of a 6th man level of talent. I just want to put to rest the idea that Cousins was over-played, or somehow ruined by the Kings management from overuse. Cousins was incentivized towards the supermax extension, and he needed the minutes to justify it.
 
Mr. S£im Citrus

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#70
#70
Insomniacal Fan said:
You found the lowest MVP MPG with Giannis over on the far left. And you have 5 or so other examples in league history of MVPs playing less...
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Of course, I did. Because I wasn't trying to prove that DeMarcus Cousins could have won MVP, playing thirty minutes a game. All I wanted to do was disprove your claim that it couldn't be done.

I think that at 30 minutes per game he'd probably would have had a longer career, but I don't think that's compatible with him being an all-time great.
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Well, First of All™, that depends on whether or not you set your baseline for "all-time great" at, "has been MVP of the league." As it turns out, I don't. Second of all, you're the one who set the arbitrary threshold of thirty minutes a game, not me. I never suggested that you cut his minutes that low, in the first place, I just think that you're underselling how big a difference two fewer minutes a game can have on a player's longevity. Cousins was averaging a career-high thirty-six minutes a game, the year he tore his Achilles: if he were just averaging his career-average thirty-four, that probably doesn't happen.
 
Mr. S£im Citrus

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#71
#71
serbiangoat said:
Where did I say he was a can't miss prospect no one on the planet knew he was going to be doing what he is. The reality is his insane skillset/mindset/heavy frame/.IQ combined to somehow work in the NBA. You can't teach elite passing and feel for the game. The fitness staff probably helped him far more than Malone did to get his ass in shape.
Click to expand...
What difference does it make that you didn't literally say the words, "Jokic is a can't-miss prospect," if your conjecture is that his coach has nothing to do with his development? There's no question that Jokic put in the work to become great, and he deserves credit for that, but the only way that Jokic goes from middle second-round pick to MVP, without coaching having something to do with it, is if he's a can't-miss prospect.
 
Mr. S£im Citrus

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#72
#72
serbiangoat said:
Cousins lack of IQ and impulse control pretty much stopped him becoming a winning player add to that literally zero post game (he had it but never used it) on a regular basis or go to post move pretty much lead to him injuring himself trying to dribble drive from the 3 point line and playing in high tempo teams.
Click to expand...
TIL a drop step is not a post move.
 
Insomniacal Fan

Insomniacal Fan

Starter
#73
#73
Mr. S£im Citrus said:
Of course, I did. Because I wasn't trying to prove that DeMarcus Cousins could have won MVP, playing thirty minutes a game. All I wanted to do was disprove your claim that it couldn't be done.
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All it took was a global catastrophe. Who knows who might win MVP when WW III kicks off and they have to turn off the lights in the arena in the 4th quarter to hide from the bombers.

I didn't mean it was physically impossible, I meant that it was so unlikely that it wasn't a good plan. Like staking all your hopes on winning the lottery.
Mr. S£im Citrus said:
Well, First of All™, that depends on whether or not you set your baseline for "all-time great" at, "has been MVP of the league." As it turns out, I don't. Second of all, you're the one who set the arbitrary threshold of thirty minutes a game, not me. I never suggested that you cut his minutes that low, in the first place, I just think that you're underselling how big a difference two fewer minutes a game can have on a player's longevity. Cousins was averaging a career-high thirty-six minutes a game, the year he tore his Achilles: if he were just averaging his career-average thirty-four, that probably doesn't happen
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Aside from the fact that Karl and Cousins were never going to work, because their personalities are oil and water, the reason why that run was doomed to fail is because D'Alessandro refused to find a viable backup for Cousins, to take some of the strain off him. Demps made the same mistake, in New Orleans, and it ultimately cost Cousins his career.
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30 minutes was indeed an arbitrary number; but I wasn't sure what your idea of an appropriate number was, and I was trying to establish a lower bound. He was a 34 minute player in Sacramento, and you were saying we overplayed him. There aren't that many minutes to shave off.

While it's all well and good for you and I to have personal opinions about what makes a player a "Great"; what's relevant to Cousins' career is being recognized as great. The MVP award is a fairly exclusive recognition of greatness. I thought it would be non-controversial that getting an MVP signifies greatness.

We could widen the net with the 75th anniversary team. There aren't many players there that averaged less than 34 minutes for their careers, there are fewer that never played a few 36 minute seasons.
 
Mr. S£im Citrus

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#74
#74
Insomniacal Fan said:
All it took was a global catastrophe.
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I'd have to double-check, but I'm ninety percent sure that none of the games in the bubble were allowed to be considered for post-season award voting. And there's no counterfactual for whether or not Antetokounmpo would have maintained those minutes through an uninterrupted season, but it's worth acknowledging that he was only averaging 30.9 mpg before the season was put on pause.

Insomniacal Fan said:
While it's all well and good for you and I to have personal opinions about what makes a player a "Great"; what's relevant to Cousins' career is being recognized as great. The MVP award is a fairly exclusive recognition of greatness. I thought it would be non-controversial that getting an MVP signifies greatness.
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Cousins was on pace to average 24/11/4 for his career, prior to injuries. That, plus a ring, would have gotten him into the Hall of Fame. Even without a ring, that's borderline (coughtracymcgradycough). Your mileage obviously varies but, to me, that's as close to "all-time great" as makes no odds.

In the case of Sacramento, the workload required by those minutes was more important than the minutes, themselves. That's why it was important to have either a) a quality backup, or b) a power forward that could have taken some of the pressure off him (read: not Jason Thompson). We can be honest about Cousins' limitations, even at his peak, and a team where Cousins was the anchor of the defense was never going to be good, but a team where Cousins was the third or fourth-best defender, and still an unstoppable force on offense... well, now we're getting somewhere. It's a travesty that Petrie and D'Alessandro were both unable to figure this out.
 
Insomniacal Fan

Insomniacal Fan

Starter
#75
#75
Mr. S£im Citrus said:
Cousins was on pace to average 24/11/4 for his career, prior to injuries. That, plus a ring, would have gotten him into the Hall of Fame. Even without a ring, that's borderline (coughtracymcgradycough). Your mileage obviously varies but, to me, that's as close to "all-time great" as makes no odds.

In the case of Sacramento, the workload required by those minutes was more important than the minutes, themselves.
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If the HOF is your measure of greatness that's fine, that's just shy of 200 players. And as for what it takes to get into the HOF, that's a whole other can of worms, because it's determined by people, not by statistical test, and people aren't always consistent with themselves. I think mostly there is an interest in superlative achievements (TMac won the league's scoring title twice in a row and is top 50 scoring overall, and was very popular, managing 7 All-star appearances ). But there are other paths (Mitch Richmond wasn't the best at anything any year he played, but he had good averages and a long career. Apparently the committee sometimes thinks that "greatness" is being very good for a very long time. And that seems satisfying to me.)

Few people anywhere dispute that Cousins was a great talent; even those who disparage him often start by acknowledging his talent. So I don't mind saying Cousins could have had a great career. But I resent the narrative that the Kings overworked Demarcus to the point of ruining him. There aren't many on the HOF list that never played a 36 minute season (< 20)*, and I'm pretty sure many of those players were asked to play solid defense; that wasn't a special burden that only Demarcus had to bear. Cousins' workload was not unreasonable for a player that wanted to be great, it was actually on the light side compared to the historical standards.

Mr. S£im Citrus said:
That's why it was important to have either a) a quality backup, or b) a power forward that could have taken some of the pressure off him (read: not Jason Thompson). We can be honest about Cousins' limitations, even at his peak, and a team where Cousins was the anchor of the defense was never going to be good, but a team where Cousins was the third or fourth-best defender, and still an unstoppable force on offense... well, now we're getting somewhere. It's a travesty that Petrie and D'Alessandro were both unable to figure this out.
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I'd think then you'd feel emboldened to bump up his minutes a bit from his averages if he was playing across from Anthony Davis


* that club is limited to role-players on the ~1960 Boston Celtics teams, players that had non performance reasons for being historically significant, and MVP winners. (There are one or two other oddballs that managed to sneak in. Who the heck is Bob Houbregs?).
 
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Tetsujin

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
#77
#77
Insomniacal Fan said:
Huh, apparently he isn’t top 50 scoring all time, more like top 75. Whoops
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Yeah, TMac's career was actually surprisingly long but he spent the last three years as a bench guy and started his career stuck on the bench behind Doug Christie, Walt Williams, and John Wallace (It always comes back to the Kings somehow) so the actual span he spent as the dominant scorer he was started after he got traded to Orlando and only lasted for seven or so seasons until his body gave out. He also missed a lot of games due to injury, which certainly doesn't help his standing in the all-time points list.
 
Mr. S£im Citrus

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#78
#78
Cousins is listed on the Nuggets' injury report as out with a sprained foot, for tonight's game against Utah. I have decided to interpret that as an intention on Denver's part to keep him, since his 10-day contract technically ran out, three days ago.
 
O

okrim

Prospect
#79
#79
Mr. S£im Citrus

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#86
#86
Nuggets just lost their first game with Cousins on the roster. Cousins couldn't match his offensive production from the previous game, but he had a solid game off the bench: 6/7/4/1/1, with a +/- of +15.

Through 11 games with the Nuggets, Cousins has a net +/- of +35, and a per game +/- average of +3.2. Which is lowkey impressive as hell, since he's literally the only guy on the roster who never gets to play with Jokic.
 
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