Are you under the impression that any of those guys had rosters as bad as the Kings had? Chris Bosh? He "carried the load" so well that, three years after he was drafted, Toronto had the Number One Overall pick. Garnett and Nowitzki are both players who were, in their primes, better players than Cousins, without qualification... but, they also played their primes in an era that was more agreeable to being a skilled big man than the era that Cousins plays in. The same can be said for Dwight Howard. He was unstoppable, back when big men still mattered, but we've seen what's become of him in the "small ball" era: he's still great at all the things that he was ever great at but, nowadays, that's barely good enough to be a starter.
I don't really understand what that has to do with @jpsls's question anyway, which was, what would you give up for Cousins (although he didn't mention Cousins by name: he was trying to be all coy about it)? How does bringing up players who are not contemporaries of Cousins make this a meaningful conversation? You want to say that those guys were better than Cousins? Okay, fine... you might as well say that Shaq was better than Cousins, for as much as it adds to the discussion. Cousins' first season of 20/10 was 2013-14; Dwight Howard's last season of 20/10 was 2011-12, Garnett's last season of 20/10 was 2006-07. Dirk (who, despite being seven feet tall, never averaged double-figure rebounds in a season) Nowitzki's last season of 20+ points was 2013-14...
For all practical intents and purposes, none of those guys played in the same era as Cousins, and results-based comparisons of guys who played in different eras are useless, because there's no counterfactual. Could Prime!Dwight have dominated in the small ball era? Maybe? Maybe not; I'm leaning towards not. Prime!KG played in an era when big men mattered, and still only made it out of the first round once, so who's to say that he even would have made the playoffs at all, in this era? The year he won MVP, the league average on 3PA/gm was 14.9, the year he and the Celtics won a championship, it was 18.1. The year that Dwight led the Magic to the Finals, it was 18.5. Last year, it was 27. It hasn't been below 20 since Cousins' sophomore year: he simply hasn't played in the same era as those guys.
DeMarcus Cousins is a Top Two or Three big man to play in his era. You tell me what that's worth?
Despite being a top two or three big man in this era, he still didn't manage to significantly elevate this team. I know some might argue that we might have won less games without Cousins on our team, but in six full seasons with Cousins we averaged 27 wins which is only 2 wins more than the year before we drafted him. In six seasons we finished under thirty wins on five occasions and his last full season we topped thirty wins for the first time.
As for the comparing eras, you are right that it is harder in this era to carry a team as a big, but it is not impossible for a big to have a significant impact on his team and help them win more games. Take Embiid as a prime example and he's a rookie that only played
31 games:
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With Embiid: 13-18 / .419 win percentage
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Without Embiid: 15-36 / .294 win percentage
Now you might argue that when Embiid got hurt the 76ers embraced tanking rather than trying to compete and win games, however they did seem to be at least trying in a similar manner to we did after the Cousins trade, they just simply didn't have enough to win games at times. With that said, when Embiid was healthy the 76ers were flirting with a play off run [granted in the weaker eastern conference], whereas they were heading for a top pick when he got hurt. So that itself shows that a big man can still have an impact on a team in the right situation. To a degree Cousins had an impact on us because our win-loss record would arguably have been lower without him, but all we got on average was 2 wins more than before he was drafted.
You are right that in this era big men don't tend to have the same impact as in previous eras, but that only goes to confirm that his trade value is not as high as people on these boards expected it to be when he was a King, and it is certainly not that high right now as a Pelican. Why? Because Cousins has not shown in his career to date that he can elevate a team to the next level. He's a fine player, but I wouldn't be giving up significant assets for him, and if I was trading for him right now I wouldn't be offering more than what OKC did for Paul George. That's not to say when he hits free agency that he won't be given a huge pay day because he will, but his trade value isn't that high now, and wasn't as high as many Kings fans thought when he was with us.
