DeMarcus Cousins: It’s Finally Time For The Sacramento Kings To Boogie
By Aaron Mah
The Kings haven’t had much reason to celebrate over the recent years; but with the rise of DeMarcus Cousins, paired with his recent scoring binge, Sacramento fans have finally found a renewed interest to rejoice.
It has been a while since the Sacramento Kings were last relevant.
In fact, over the past five years, every time the franchise pops up as the primary topic at hand, it has been for comedic reasons.
From owner Vivek Randadive suggesting his team should play four-on-five to their disastrous draft choices over the past handful of years (Stauskas? Stauskas!), the Kings unwillingly became the butt of all NBA jokes.
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However, slowly but surely, DeMarcus Cousins — a walking, viral-inducing, ticking time-bomb in his own right — is shedding some the stink associated with the franchise by going on an unadulterated tear, putting up numbers that would even make his club’s part-owner, Shaquille O’Neal, proud.
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In this post-zone-era, big men are not supposed to dominate like they once did — at least offensively. But what the artist affectionately known as Boogie Cousins is currently doing is putting such myths to shame with his devastating concoction and nightly display of power, grace, and inside-outside skills.
He serves as the walking, breathing blueprint for any big man who aspires to average 25-plus points per game in the modern NBA — equipped with the ability to snatch a rebound and take it coast-to-coast; rim-running without oblivion to establish prime real estate; and perhaps most importantly, the ability to face his center counterparts out from 25 feet out, break them off-the-bounce, before utilizing his crafty interior footwork to either draw a foul or overpower them for a bucket.
All that skill, and all that boog, compact in a 6’11”, 290-pound frame — sometimes, life just ain’t fair.
Despite his staunch counting stats and undeniable output, some have questioned if DMC was the product of “empty stats” — numbers that do not lead to winning.
Boogie is conquering one critique at a time during this month, however, as in addition to leading the league in scoring and third in rebounding for the month of January (at 33.8 points and 12.8 rebounds a contest), the Sacramento Kings have gone a respectable 7-5 and are 11th in the association in Net Rating during the stretch, per NBA.com.
To put his current dominance into perspective, the last player to finish a month with averages as high as Cousins thus far this month was Moses Malone, who averaged 35.0 points and 14.4 rebounds per game for the Houston Rockets in March 1982.
Yes, almost 34 years ago.
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I don’t know what constitutes a MVP candidate anymore, as the ambiguity associated with the term “valuable” can give it a myriad of meanings, but if what Cousins is doing at the moment does not earn him a spot on the Western Conference All-Star team — especially with the dearth of big men the new format promotes — count me in as one of the many calling for an All-Star selection reform.
So while some may still consider Big Couz “emotionally immature” (according to some on Twitter), he has been able to channel some of his overzealous nature into an unstoppable brand of aggression. And for that, it is time we begin to celebrate DeMarcus Cousins for what he is, and collectively root on the Sacramento Kings as they aim to secure a playoff spot.