If the Kings did draft Cousins, how would his game fit with the other players? How would he work with Tyreke? Would he diminish the space for Tyreke drives or exand it? Would he demand a double team? If so, would that mean more of game like Orlando's with a big and four 3 point shooters? How would that fit with Tyreke's game? With such a different game than Hawes, would that mean Hawes would be instantly expendable? Hard for me to see the team having a low post offense for Cousins and then switching to a high post offense for Hawes. Same thing for Thompson, really. Reynolds like his game at center, but he's a high post center. So do you see a schizo offense with low post Cousins and high post Thompson and Hawes?
If we draft Cousins then we'll really want him in the post. He's an excellent offensive rebounder, and since he's such a big body, you want him doing damage against the other team while jockeying for position.
I think he'll excel in a half-court offense, but remember that Kentucky is a running team, and he handled himself very well in that sort of offense.
Once of Tyreke's critisisms is that he doesn't push the ball enough. When Tyreke does push the ball it seems he always either gets to the rim or is able to drop it off to Landry/JT at the last second.
If that is the style that Westphal tries to implement, then I think that Cousins will fare well there. Favors would fare better as I think he's more suited to a run-n-gun style of play, but Cousins has shown that he can get up and down the court.
From a half-court perspective Cousins will not be able to spread the floor anywhere as well as Hawes, JT, or Landry, as his mid-range jumpshot needs work. But he will be able to demand a double-team in the post.
He's big and strong enough that he will be able to get good post position and hold it.
And he's actually got good footwork in the post. He is the exact opposite of Hawes. Hawes has the skills but not the strength. Cousins doesn't have the array of moves, but he's got the brute strength and length, so his post moves are very effective.
So with Cousins I see the offense working in the following manner:
1.) Tyreke pushes the ball and tries to get to the rim.
2.) If Tyreke can't get to the rim then Cousins attempts to establish post position. If successful they get him the ball and he either works for a good shot opportunity or passes it out if doubled. (He actually does a very good job passing it out to open guards on the perimeter.)
3.) If Cousins can't find a scoring or passing opportunity, he passes it out to a guard. Then he moves to the perimeter to set a screen for the guard to get something going towards the basket.
I think the biggest question regarding Cousins on the offensive end will be his ability to play the pick-n-roll. Kentucky didn't really do much of that, so we'd have to wait and see if has that element to his game, or if he can add it if it's lacking.
I do think that Cousins is a better fit for this team compared to Favors. Favors will be able to play in a running style better than Cousins. But Tyreke doesn't seem to push the ball as much as he should, and in an offensive half-court set Cousins is far superior to Favors due to his size, strength, length, and power-post moves.
Favors is probably a better overall defender, but Cousins has the size to address our biggest defensive need, and that is against the other team's bigs. I think that Cousins will be able to contest and bother players like Pau, Al Jefferson, Bynum, or Lopez better than Favors. Favors will probably be able to better defend players like Amare, Dirk, David West, ect.