The Case For DeMarcus Cousins Joining The Spurs

One of the league’s problem children may actually be a good fit with the San Antonio Spurs.

The San Antonio Spurs played the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday on the final leg of their annual Rodeo Road Trip.  The Spurs were not as great on defense as they could have been, though they still cruised to a comfortable win. During this game, Kings centerpiece DeMarcus Cousins put up a valiant effort to the tune of 39 points and nine rebounds. It still wasn’t’ enough, and Cousins was asked his perspective after the game.

The dejection was evident on Cousins’ face as he watched the Spurs pull away during one of his brief breathers on the bench. For all of his mercurial talent (as evidenced by the technical foul he earned on top of his 39 points), Cousins has maintained that he just wants to win. Period.

The Spurs can help with that.

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Hear me out on this, Spurs Faithful (of which I have been for the past 25 years). I’ve written about this before, mainly in a joking manner, but this time, I’m serious.

We all know that Tim Duncan will be riding off into the sunset within the next few years. While LaMarcus Aldridge was a prize acquisition this past summer, and seems to be settling in well in tandem with Kawhi Leonard, he is still inconsistent (at 58 games into the season, the whole “trying to fit in” excuse doesn’t apply anymore). When Aldridge is on, he’s on, and he shows why the Spurs opened up their purse strings for an $84 million-dollar contract. But those times have been relatively few and far between, to the point that while I trust head coach Gregg Popovich and general manager RC Buford, I am still not impressed.

Enter Cousins.

He is only 25 years old. He is desperate to win a championship; while he would love to be The Man who brought the first one to Sacramento since 1951, he is approaching the point where any championship venue will do.  He is arguably one of the best centers in the league, if not the best. He can protect the rim and shoot.

What is missing in his career so far is the structure, stability, and nurturing that he received during his lone year at the University of Kentucky, that infamous one-and-done mill. He had that briefly in Sactown under former head coach Mike Malone, until the latter was ignominiously fired during Cousins’ bout with viral meningitis and the team’s subsequent losing streak. Malone joined the ranks of the Kings’  many “one-and-done” coaches (coaches who only lasted one season or less) dating back to Dick Motta’s one-season reign in 1990. Now, Cousins’ voice of reason comes in the form of the equally mercurial Rajon Rondo. Alas, the blind are leading the blind.

He’s also missing loyalty. While the organization, in the guise of majority owner Vivek Ranadive, pledged their loyalty to Cousins with a max contract extension in 2013, Cousins has two functional eyes and can see that “loyalty” exists as long as one produces at a high level. What else can the man think when he’s on his fifth coach since being drafted by the Kings in 2010?

Enter the Spurs.

A head coach who’s been there over twenty years; a GM who’s been there almost as long. A franchise that values stability, loyalty, and sanity, and is widely viewed as the league’s gold standard. A team that puts egos aside and functions as one unit, despite the presence of three future Hall of Famers and a boatload of All-Stars. Abundant veteran leadership, past and present. On pace to have a 17th consecutive season with at least 50 wins. Five championships. 

As strange as it may sound, Cousins’ game might get even better if he donned the Silver and Black. And real talk: the Spurs will need all the help they can get at the rim once Duncan retires. Plus, Cousins is that uncommon big man who can shoot the ball. Those are like unicorns in today’s league, to paraphrase Kevin Durant.

Now for money matters. Again, the ins and outs of contracts, picks, cap space, etc. aren’t my particular cup of Lipton, and I make no pretenses regarding such. But Cousins will be an unrestricted free agent in 2018, after signing a four-year, $65 million extension in 2013. He should be entering his prime at 27 years of age. The odds are that Duncan will no longer be on the Spurs player roster by then. The Spurs usually don’t throw money at marquee players, opting instead to do more with less (the five championship banners hanging in the AT&T Center attest to the soundness of this practice). If they have the chance, though, Cousins might be worth the exception. Team salary caps will balloon starting next season, so the Spurs will feasibly have the money since Aldridge and Leonard, the two big-ticket Spurs, are already locked up.

Understandably, Ranadive will not want to part with Cousins, and since the Kings retain his Bird rights, they can offer him more money to stay.

But what if Cousins forced a trade?

This season has proven that it’s not always about the money. Players are increasingly aware of limited championship windows and, given that endorsement deals tend to pay way more than their NBA salaries, taking less money to have a legitimate shot at a championship with another team is not out of the question (hi, David West). The Kings are in their usual spot of being in danger of missing the playoffs, as they are currently five games behind the Houston Rockets for the no. 8 seed in the Western Conference and four games behind an increasingly dangerous Utah Jazz team. Cousins has paid a lot of lip service to wanting to stay in Sacramento, but another year without a postseason–and, if reports are correct, with yet another head coach–may change his mind.

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While the All-Star Game is hardly a reliable sample size, Cousins seemed to do well under Popovich, to the point that the iconic coach liked the random play he drew up. This small token of trust and esteem, even in an event that is more along the lines of a glorified pick-up game, may not have meant much to Pop, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it meant a lot more to Cousins. If the Spurs have the shot at getting Cousins, I’d say that another full-court press of The New Big Three, plus maybe Duncan and Ginobili (if he has also retired by then), would be in order. It couldn’t hurt.