by Liam McKeone
For anyone who likes fun basketball – or lives in New Orleans – DeMarcus Cousins tearing his Achilles this weekend was devastating. The controversial big man had just started to find his groove with the Pelicans, with the injury occurring only four days removed from Cousins dropping the obscene stat line of 44 points, 23 rebounds and 10 assists.
Cousins and Anthony Davis were thriving as always, but the biggest positive was the play of their role players; it seemed, nearly a year after the trade, that all the pieces were coming together for New Orleans. Jrue Holiday was beginning to emerge as the all-around, two-way player that he was known to be before having his career waylaid by injuries and his wife’s brain tumor. Rajon Rondo was doing all the good Rondo things and none of the bad Rondo things, dishing out assists and playing good defense, all while not fighting his teammates. The team was finally starting to gel on both ends of the court. Now, they’re back to Anthony Davis shouldering the majority of the load, and it will lead to a series of tough decisions for a maligned franchise.
Cousins is an unrestricted free agent this upcoming offseason, and where he would end up was already one of the hot topics of the year. Over the last month, it has seemed more and more likely that New Orleans may make the dual big man approach work and double down on their stair pairing of Cousins and Davis. Cousins was giving more effort on defense, and both players were finally starting to find their groove and put up big numbers consistently with one another. Now, with only a taste of what a Cousins-Davis team could do at full power, New Orleans is stuck. The front office has proven unable to provide Davis with any decent supporting cast, and Cousins was their last effort. If the team had flopped this year, Cousins would be gone, head coach Alvin Gentry would have been fired and Davis would, in all likelihood, be on the trading block. No one wants to hit the reset button after getting a once-in-a-generation talent like Davis, but it’s been almost eight years now. If things didn’t go well, it was a very real chance that Davis would either force his way out or be shipped out in a complete rebuild.
Unfortunately for the Pelicans, things are now tricky. They could go all-in on Cousins and Davis, seeing how good they could be over the last months, and decide that, even though the success of the experiment was questionable throughout the year, Cousins is worth the risk. Of course, Cousins comes with his own baggage of not being a great locker room guy or giving full effort all the time. Then there’s the fact that if they do sign Cousins to a max extension, that leaves them very little salary cap room to fill out the roster behind Cousins, Davis and Holiday, who’s also on a max deal. Is the front office willing to stake the future of the franchise, and maybe their careers, on a notoriously headstrong player who hasn’t proven he can win? Do they take a chance on letting Cousins walk and filling the roster around Davis, even though they’ve failed in that exact effort for seven years? Do the owners decide that it’s not worth the potential expenditure and dump everyone? It’s an intriguing situation and one that was made all the more complicated this weekend.
