Los Angeles Lakers: Does LA have a true Big 3 with DeMarcus Cousins?

By adding DeMarcus Cousins to a roster led by LeBron James and Anthony Davis, have the Los Angeles Lakers constructed their next powerhouse?

After the Los Angeles Lakers claimed a worthless silver medal in the race for Kawhi Leonard, the team had to move fast to fill the rest of its skeleton roster with the best available free agents in a depleted talent pool.

Almost immediately following the news of Leonard’s decision to join the Los Angeles Clippers, the Lakers snatched up swingman Danny Green, formerly of the reigning NBA champion Toronto Raptors, and reached agreements to re-sign center JaVale McGee and shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

The big score for the Lakers on Saturday was DeMarcus Cousins per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the four-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA center who averaged 16.3 points and 8.2 rebounds per game for the Golden State Warriors last season.

The dream scenario for the Lakers this summer was to execute a trade for superstar power forward Anthony Davis, pair him with LeBron James, then sign Leonard in free agency to form a Big Three that could dominate the league for the foreseeable future and add more championships to the Lakers’ side of the Staples Center.

They made the Davis trade, but the final piece didn’t come to fruition. Leonard will instead try to bring those championship trophies over to the Clippers’ side of the arena, while the Lakers go into next season with a Big Three that is arguably not a true Big Three at all.

It really boils down to what Cousins can bring to the table in what appears to be a crossroads point in his career. Of course, the term Big Three has no official, agreed-upon definition and is subjective to each person’s specific criteria.

Some would argue that a Big Three must consist of three bona fide superstars — another subjective term — who are in their prime — another subjective term. Some would say a Big Three means each player has been or could be the No. 1 option or marquee face on other teams in the league.

Some argue that a Big Three has to be made up of three players who could average at least 20 points per game. Other people with more lenient standards might argue that every team has a Big Three, as the term does nothing more than give a label to each team’s top three players.

Had the Lakers signed Leonard, there would be no question that L.A. would’ve constructed a Big Three by almost anyone’s standards. By swapping Cousins in for Leonard, the question becomes a real one worth debating.

Cousins’ reported $3.5 million salary for next season is a shockingly low number for a player with his resume who is only 28 years old, but there are good reasons why he’s being paid well below elite centers like Joel Embiid ($27.2 million), Andre Drummond ($27.0 million) and Nikola Jokic ($27.5 million).

On Jan. 26, 2018, Cousins suffered a torn Achilles tendon while playing for the New Orleans Pelicans. At the time he got hurt, Cousins was arguably the best center in the NBA and was coincidentally on the same team with Davis and current Lakers point guard Rajon Rondo. Cousins had racked up his aforementioned All-Star and All-NBA accolades in his nascent career with the Pelicans and Sacramento Kings, along with an Olympic gold medal with Team USA in 2016.

Cousins and Davis were widely considered the best frontcourt tandem in the league, a new-age “Twin Towers” who could dominate in the paint but also destroy defenses from the perimeter. When his Achilles betrayed him, Cousins was just a few months shy of entering free agency, where he was expected to land a max-level contract from whichever of the likely several suitors he chose.

After the injury, Cousins garnered little interest in the early stages of free agency, allowing the two-time defending champions from Golden State to swoop in and sign him to a one-year contract for $5.3 million.

No one was certain when or if Cousins would play for the Warriors in 2018-19, but adding him to the roster was just icing on the cake for a team that already had four All-Stars in the starting lineup. If Cousins could get back on the court at any point during the season and play anywhere close to how he played at his peak, the Warriors might cruise to a three-peat.

Cousins made it back on Jan. 18, 2019 — almost a week off one year to the day of his injury — and paid immediate dividends for Golden State. In his first game back, he poured in 14 points in 15 minutes of action. He scored 22 in his fifth game, and two games later he posted his first double-double when he hung 18 points and 10 rebounds on the Lakers.

In his 30 regular-season games for the Warriors, Cousins was not dominant, but Golden State didn’t need him to be. He sat out games here and there for load management, but otherwise, he looked good going into the playoffs in which the Warriors were favored to win it all.

In Game 2 of Golden State’s first-round series with the Clippers, however, Cousins suffered a torn quadriceps muscle. The popular assumption was that he’d miss the rest of the postseason.

Cousins made it back for the NBA Finals. In that series, he started half of the time and came off the bench for the other. He averaged 8.3 points and 4.7 rebounds on 42.5 percent shooting from the field as the injury-plagued Warriors lost to the Raptors.

Entering free agency again, Cousins was overlooked a second time as other big-name stars and lesser talents went off the board this summer. When Leonard spurned the Lakers for the Clippers on Friday night, Cousins finally emerged as the best available free agent, and the Lakers moved fast to reunite him with Davis and Rondo.

Talent-wise, Cousins is as good as any big man in the sport. Listed at 6’11” and 270 pounds, he can handle the ball and shoot from 3-point range, or he can just be a plain beast in the paint. He’s also a great passer and can defend his position. In his last fully healthy season, Cousins had three games in which he posted at least 40 points and 20 rebounds.

He showed flashes of that for the Warriors, but still knocking off some rust and playing a reduced role next to so many established stars, it didn’t happen often.

Conventional sports wisdom says that Year 2 following a major injury is the true comeback year for an athlete. After an abbreviated 2018-19 campaign and a full offseason to actually work like normal rather than rehabbing and recovering, Cousins may be poised for a return to superstardom in 2019-20.

Does that mean the Lakers will have a legit Big Three starring LeBron, Davis and Cousins?

Coming off injury-plagued seasons of their own, LeBron and Davis should bounce back to their MVP-candidate, All-NBA ways. Cousins has a more complicated road to reclaiming his place in the league’s hierarchy.

Given his skill set, Cousins’ game can fit in nicely with the Lakers. He and Davis already showed successful chemistry in New Orleans. Cousins is a great passing big man, so he can pick apart a double-team, and yet he’s a problem for any defender to stop 1-on-1. On top of that, he has range with his jumper, so he can really score from anywhere.

Then again, it’s possible that Cousins might not even be L.A.’s starting center from Day 1.

McGee played very well last season as the starter, averaging 12.0 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game. His bouncy, athletic style might work better for the starting five as someone who can play pick-and-roll with LeBron and stay around the rim while Davis operates all over the floor.

McGee is an active defender who has the quickness to keep up with guards and wings. Cousins is more of a powerful defender who can patrol things down low and create havoc with quick hands. He struggled last season when he got switched onto quick offensive players. That could be chalked up to being a byproduct of the injury, and maybe it’ll improve next season, or not.

The Lakers already have their defensive issues on the perimeter — starting mainly with LeBron — so they might not have the leeway to start Cousins over a better defender like McGee.

Cousins could be better suited as the No. 1 guy on the second unit, depending on how head coach Frank Vogel wants the Lakers to play.

Even if Cousins comes off the bench, however, he can still qualify as the third member of a Big Three. Manu Ginobili did it with the San Antonio Spurs, and Kevin McHale did it with the Boston Celtics, winning championships and Sixth Man of the Year awards in the process.

The biggest threat to Cousins’ status could actually be Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma. The team’s second-leading scorer last season with 18.7 points per game, Kuzma has gotten better in each of his two years as a pro. He was the piece L.A. did not want to give up in its pursuit of Davis.

Kuzma is a three-year college player who entered the NBA more polished than most rookies and in spending this summer working out with LeBron, could be on the verge of breaking out into a star. It wouldn’t be a shock to see Kuzma turn into the third member of a Big Three, while Cousins takes on a role closer to what he played with the Warriors.

By the end of the season, I’d predict most observers will be comfortable referring to the LeBron-Davis-Cousins trio as a true Big Three, with Cousins having more on nights than off. Whether that results in the Lakers winning a championship or not, it will mean that when Cousins hits free agency again in 2020, he’ll command a much higher salary than he’s been able to get recently.