- DeMarcus Cousins - Geoff Petrie makes an impressive balance of bad moves and insanely obvious ones that no one else makes. Somehow, people passed on Cousins and Tyreke Evans, presumably by overthinking; Petrie didn't, and thus now has one of the best young cores in the league. That's a commendation, even if it doesn't sound like one. The hardest and yet most important part of GMing is not making mistakes.
Of the aforementioned 29 players signed so far, all but Wesley Johnson, DeMarcus Cousins, Greg Monroe, Gordon Hayward, Avery Bradley, Craig Brackins, Quincy Pondexter and Lazar Hayward have performance incentives in their contracts. This means that the top three picks all have them, as do most of the ones below them. So when I say it is standard practice to have performance incentives in rookie scale contracts, I am not just yanking your crank. It really is.
The trade for Samuel Dalembert took a smidgen out of the Kings 2010 cap room, because Dalembert was paid more this season ($12,025,694) than Hawes and Nocioni combined ($9,832,800). That amount boosted the Kings' 2010/11 committed salary to $36,500,829, a figure onto which we must add DeMarcus Cousins's salary ($3,374,640), as he has already signed his rookie deal. There is also a qualifying offer extended to Jon Brockman, which is fully guaranteed; the fact that the Kings extended that offer, whilst also signing Cousins early (first round picks almost always have smaller cap holds when unsigned than when signed, since cap holds are 100% of the rookie scale and players almost sign for 120%), suggests that the Kings aren't too serious about doing the cap space thing.
[...] By signing DeMarcus Cousins, the Kings no longer have enough cap room for LeBron James.
Pick 5: Now armed with a centre in Sam Dalembert, the Kings further bolster their front court by picking DeMarcus Cousins, also out of Kentucky. Cousins reacts to the news with a huge hug for his mother, and John Calipari is quickly in there to get one of his own. That man can find a camera, let me tell you.
Gotta say the trend for prefixing normal names with "De-" still doesn't bore me. It particularly works with DeGreg Monroe and DeDarington Hobson.
Cousins bounds to the stage nattily attired in Kings colours - it's almost like HE knew, too! - and then proceeds to give the worst interview in the history of draft nights. Openly, brazenly and stupidly, Cousins says "they think I'm a monster [but] I'm just a kid who likes to have fun." We don't think you're a monster, DeMarcus. We just don't think you're very mature. And I think you just proved it.
(We can all equate. I was hideously immature at that age, too, and the jokes about Sexual Favors's name above suggest that maybe I'm not quite there yet either. But if you're in the NBA at that age, you have to mature incredibly fast. And if you can't do that, you're simply got to hide it. DeMarcus doesn't.)
In vaguely related trivia, Cousins was the victim of my favourite dunk from last season, by Georgia wingman Travis Leslie;
Good dunks are all about the dismount. And that was a fine dismount.
Cousins is the right pick for Sacramento, for they needed a big man. There were of course a multitude of other big man options in this size-laden draft, but Cousins represents the best chance of stardom. He is better than Favors right now. He has NBA size, great strength, athleticism as well, soft hands, a deft touch, footwork, and the ability to score in the post going either left or right. Moreover, he is a prolific rebounder, who grabbed as-near-as-is 10 rebounds per game list year in only 23 minutes. That's an unbelievably good rebounding rate, particularly in view of the 35 second shot clock that sees less possessions per game. Cousins ranked 28th in the nation in defensive rebounding percentage last season, and ranked second offensively: the only player with significant minutes in the NBA last season to come close to Cousins's 19.1% ORB% is the man he may replace in Sacramento, Jon Brockman (18.2%). DeJuan Blair (16.0%) is comparatively a mile behind.
However, while he has the most star potential, Cousins also has the most bust potential. He backchats, sulks and argues with coaches, and can be brash and abrasive on the court. People around him seem to love him, but coaches - particularly the staid ways of NBA coaches - will not. Cousins has been subject to criticisms about his work ethic, laziness and maturity, and they are why he resides behind Favors on the draft board, even though he's better than him right now.
Rebounding translates, as does size. Cousins has more than enough of both, and he could be a 20 point scorer as well. But to realise his potential, he'll need to stop the sulking and the petulance. Almost everyone matures at some point in their playing career; Sacramento surely drafts him knowing that the leash must be short, yet the patience must be long. It won't be especially smooth, but Cousins has the skill level to justify it.
Jay Bilas chimes in and states "Only DeMarcus can stop DeMarcus." It's a more succinct way of saying the same thing, but it negligently overlooks the very real threat of chrondomalacia. Easily the most underrated disease featuring an NBA player's name.
Note: Non-US teams that the player
has played for are, unless stated otherwise, from the top division in
that nation. If league or division name is expressly stated, it's not
the top division. The only exceptions to this are the rare occasions where
no one league is said to be above the other, such as with the JBL/BJ League
split inJapan.
In the event where more than one agent is listed, this is because the
player has more than one agent. This is rather commonplace - a lot of
times, a player will sign with a big agency, and they will have both primary
and secondary agents from within that agency to handle their affairs.
(Where that happens, the primary agent is listed first.) Also, foreign
players tend to have both American and domestic agents. Where the details
of such are known, they are listed.
How much centres get paid
