Does DeMarcus Cousins make the Warriors unstoppable? http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23980154/how-much-better-does-demarcus-cousins-make-golden-state-warriors-nba

1. Does DeMarcus Cousins make the
Warriors unstoppable?
2d - Kevin PeltonGOLDEN STATE WARRIORS
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Does DeMarcus Cousins make the
Warriors unstoppable?

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OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER
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Jul 3, 2018
That sound you just heard was jaws around the NBA hitting the floor with the
news that All-Star DeMarcus Cousins has agreed to a one-year, $5.3 million
deal with the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors.
In a move straight out of a poorly designed video game, the Warriors -- when
healthy -- can add a fifth All-Star to their starting lineup for less money than the
New York Knicks just agreed to pay Mario Hezonja.
How will Cousins fit in the Bay Area? And how much will his addition help
Golden State's chances of making it four titles in five years?
How the Warriors got Cousins
Kevin Pelton
ESPN Staff Writer
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3. Let's start by answering the question of how this happened. As I explained last
week, the tight market for free agents and particularly centers made bargains
possible. Given those constraints, Cousins' market was squeezed in a hurry.
EDITOR'S PICKS
Cousins calls joining Warriors 'my ace of spades'
DeMarcus Cousins has agreed to join the defending champion Warriors on a one-year,
$5.3 million deal, league sources told ESPN. The four-time All-Star called the move "my
ace of spades" in a conversation with The Undefeated's Marc J. Spears.
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The Dallas Mavericks, the team with cap space most motivated to sign a center,
quickly agreed to terms with DeAndre Jordan. The Los Angeles Lakers evidently
prioritized perimeter players for the one-year contracts they were offering,
signing former Golden State center JaVale McGee for the veteran's minimum.
And Cousins' former team, the New Orleans Pelicans, got a cheaper, younger
replacement in Julius Randle after the Lakers renounced his rights.
With the remaining teams with cap space either rebuilding (Atlanta and
Chicago), in no need of a center (Philadelphia) or uninterested in a reunion
(Sacramento), those moves left a sign-and-trade deal as Cousins' only real hope
of getting more than the $8.6 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception.
Unless there's a suitor we don't know about, odds are Cousins actually didn't
sacrifice much money to take the Warriors' smaller taxpayer midlevel. At that
point, the chance to join the defending champs was probably worth taking
slightly less money for one year. Cousins will return to free agency in a year
hoping for a better market, as more teams will have cap space and he'll be a year

4. further removed from the ruptured Achilles tendon that ended his 2017-18
season before the All-Star break.
What can Golden State expect from Cousins?
The Achilles injury should temper expectations for Cousins to some extent. As
I've noted before, the track record for players coming back from a ruptured
Achilles tendon shows them playing about 8 percent worse the following season
than projected based on their pre-injury stats.
Of course, Cousins has plenty of room to decline and still be an elite player.
Even after accounting for the injury, I projected Cousins to be 8.6 wins better
than a replacement-level player next season before considering where he'd sign.
That's more than the 7.4 WARP the Warriors' centers combined for last season,
and of course, they'll still get contributions from backup Jordan Bell (1.8 WARP
in 57 games as a rookie) and any other centers they sign.
That projection did not factor in a late start to Cousins' season, and ESPN's
Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Cousins is hoping to return sometime in
December or January. That would be a conservative timetable for a return from
the Achilles rupture suffered Jan. 26. Last season, we saw Rudy Gay return at
the start of training camp from an Achilles injury suffered on Jan. 18.
If any team can afford to wait on Cousins, it's Golden State, which has
prioritized peaking in the playoffs over piling up regular-season wins. Adding
Cousins might force the Warriors to spend an additional roster spot on center
depth, but that's a price Golden State will surely pay.
How will Cousins fit with the Warriors?

5. Adding Cousins will require adjustment for both him and his new Golden State
teammates. Cousins has used more than 30 percent of his team's plays each of
the past five seasons, including 32 percent last season with the Pelicans. By
contrast, only one Warriors center used more than 20 percent of the team's
plays while on the court in 2017-18: David West at 22 percent. Previous starters
McGee (19 percent) and Zaza Pachulia (17 percent) had much lower usage rates,
so something will have to give with the new starting five when Cousins is
healthy. Ideally, that will be Cousins, a lower-efficiency scorer in the past than
most of his new All-Star teammates.
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Cousins will also have to get comfortable making quicker decisions with the ball
on offense. He has had the opportunity to hold the ball and survey the defense
before deciding whether to shoot, pass or drive, something that is frowned upon
in the Golden State offense because of the way it allows defenses to load up.
According to Second Spectrum tracking, Cousins' average touch last season saw
him hold the ball for 2.6 seconds, far longer than the Warriors' centers. Bell had
the longest average touch time of those players, at 1.7 seconds. For that matter,
Cousins' touches were longer even than those of Draymond Green (2.2 seconds
on average).

6. At the other end of the court, Cousins isn't ideally suited for Golden State's
switch-heavy defense. Per Second Spectrum tracking, Cousins switched on just
46 screens all of 2017-18, 2.7 percent of the screens he defended. Even Pachulia,
the slowest-footed of the Warriors' centers last season, switched 13 percent of
the screens he defended. Steve Kerr will want to avoid putting Cousins in
situations in which he has to switch.
I would say there's some risk to this signing for the Warriors. Cousins'
relationships with his teammates have been mixed, and those with coaches
worse than that. If he's unwilling or unable to adapt his game, it's even possible
that Cousins could hurt Golden State more than he helps. In that case, however,
the Warriors could simply look to trade or move Cousins and move on with
relatively little pain.
For all the critics bemoaning Golden State's continuing to ruin the NBA, the
good news is this is almost certainly a one-year partnership. The Warriors will
be able to offer Cousins only $6.4 million to return in 2019-20 using non-Bird
rights, and if he plays well, Cousins will easily beat that in free agency.
That said, in this case, the critics do have something of a point. The addition of
Cousins plus the Houston Rockets' losing starter Trevor Ariza means the gap

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far this offseason.
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First impressions of Sacramento and
Utah Summer Leagues

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Jul 4, 2018
If Las Vegas is the main event of the NBA's summer, then Utah's and
Sacramento's pocket-sized summer league exhibitions are the appealing open
acts.
Eight teams are in action before the Las Vegas Summer League starts Friday.
Three of the top five picks highlight the Utah and Sacramento leagues, giving
fans a glimpse of elite prospects from this June's draft class. As always, there
have been both rookie jitters and jubilation.
A rundown of the highlights (and lowlights) of the first two days:
UTAH
Kevin Arnovitz and Marc J. Spears
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Trae Young says he felt comfortable in second game Hawks rookie guard Trae
Young reacts to his second Summer League game and how having great teammates
helps his passing ability.
1:09
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No. 4 overall pick Jaren Jackson Jr. was feeling it from deep, shooting 8-of-13 from 3-point
range and scoring 29 points against the Hawks. (1:00)

9. Following his 29-point debut in which he sank 8-of-13 attempts from beyond
the arc Monday against the Atlanta Hawks, Memphis Grizzlies rookie Jaren
Jackson, Jr. worked on his inside game Tuesday against a Utah Jazz
defense more attentive to his perimeter game.
"I had a feeling they were going to play my 3 a little bit more," Jackson said.
"I got a couple to fall, but I knew it would be harder to get them off."
Jackson finished 4-for-11 from the field (2-of-4 from 3) with 10 points and
eight rebounds against Utah Tuesday. Jackson might be classified as a big
man, but is a committed perimeter player -- and far more than just a stand-
in-the-corner brand of stretch-big. He's flaring off screens and collecting
dribble-handoffs.
But on Tuesday, Jackson was also more than happy to bang inside, brandish
some fancy footwork, and work off the dribble against tight close-outs. A
lanky presence down low on the other end, Jackson has mobility and
reasonably good instincts. He unleashed a nasty block in the closing minutes
and does appear capable of cultivating a mastery of NBA big-man defense.
On the heels of a rough 4-for-20 night in his debut on Monday, Trae Young
struggled again from the field in the Hawks' 103-81 loss to the San Antonio
Spurs. He scored 12 points on 5-for-16 shooting, with three assists (his
teammates didn't help him in this regard).
Yet the total performance wasn't nearly the disaster the line might suggest.
Young did a nice job facilitating against the Spurs' aggressive pressure.
"I'm getting a lot of face guards, a lot of [being] picked up full court, so I'm
just trying to make the right play, make the right pass," Young said after the
game.
Young is deeply enamored with his floater -- which he proved at Oklahoma
can be effective in spots -- but at present in Salt Lake City, it's rendering him
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10. an inefficient scorer. He missed his first six shots, draining his first bucket
just before halftime -- a straight-away 3-pointer.
Young enjoyed some nice moments in the second half. When he challenges
the defense by changing speeds to get to the rim with the intention of
finishing, he's an effective driver.
Derrick White, the Spurs' first-round pick from 2017, took charge and
dominated the early game Tuesday against Atlanta. A smart combo guard
who played in 17 games with San Antonio last season and averaged 20 points
in 24 games at the Spurs' G League affiliate in Austin, White initiated offense
with ease, scoring 21 points on 7-for-15 shooting, dishing out nine assists,
and collecting six rebounds. He alternated between scoring and playmaking,
excelling in the pick-and-roll, passing up good-not-great shots to find cutters
with open lanes to the rim, and kicking it out to shooters when he met a wall
of defenders on a drive. Though White isn't an elite-level athlete, he's steady
and unselfish, with a chance to be a reliable shooter from the outside.
Grayson Allen had the night off Tuesday. Allen strained an adductor in pre-
draft workouts, and though he's fine, there's little reason to push him in a
back-to-back. Allen scored 11 points (4-for-16 shooting) on Monday night to
go along with eight rebounds and seven assists.
Likewise, the Spurs sat their first-round draft pick, Lonnie Walker IV on
their only back-to-back of the summer league season. And like Allen, Walker
struggled from the field in his debut, scoring seven points on 3-for-16
shooting.
-- Kevin Arnovitz
SACRAMENTO
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Marvin Bagley III gave the Sacramento fans a show in his summer league debut. Rocky Widner/NBAE/Getty

11. It was the tale of two nights for Sacramento Kings rookie Marvin Bagley
III in his new home arena. The No. 2 overall draft pick had 18 points and a
spectacular dunk in his summer league debut Monday against the Los
Angeles Lakers. Bagley scored efficiently (6-of-11 field goals, 5-of-6 free
throws) while adding three blocked shots.
But on Tuesday, the Golden State Warriors' athletes bothered Bagley as he
missed 13 of 16 shots. Tuesday night was a forgettable night for all the Kings,
but especially those not named Justin Jackson (20 points, 7-of-11 field
goals) or Frank Mason (16 points, 5-of-10 field goals). Outside of those
two, the Kings combined to shoot only 7-of-48 from the field (14.1 percent).
A silver lining for the Kings is that 2017 first-round pick Harry Giles III
played in both games after missing all of his rookie season due to knee
rehabilitation.
LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers could use some more perimeter
shooting on their revamped roster. Perhaps it can come from rookie
sharpshooter Svi Mykhailiuk, who has made 5-of-14 3-pointers (35.7
percent) in the first two games. Mykhailiuk was the 47th pick in the 2018
NBA draft, so he's playing for a roster spot in Los Angeles.
Power forward Moritz Wagner, selected 25th overall by the Lakers last
month, is only 3-of-12 (25 percent) from 3 through two summer games.
Warriors power forward Jordan Bell is known for his athleticism and his
dunks. But so far in summer league action, he looks as if he has added
confidence in a midrange jumper, though he is not taking 3s yet.
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Bell catches oop off glass for dunk Josh Magette bounces the ball off the glass for
Jordan Bell, who finishes with a one-handed dunk.
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0:23

12. SPONSORED HEADLINES
Bell shook off a 2-of-8 shooting performance Monday against Miami by
going 4-of-5 from the field Tuesday against Sacramento. The defensive side
is still where Bell shines, as he has five steals and four blocks through two
summer games.
Miami Heat small forward Derrick Jones, Jr., has averaged 23 points
during the first two summer league games. Jones ended last season on
Miami's roster on a two-way contract, and he earned a standard contract
from the Heat on Monday.
Center Bam Adebayo has been an elite rebounder so far, averaging 12
rebounds in the first two games. Adebayo has been turnover prone, however,
giving up the ball nine times already.
-- Marc J. Spears
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