Welcome to the latest edition of our LeBron Wire Los Angeles Lakers roster countdown, all the way to LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Previously
No. 16: DeMarcus Cousins
Experience: 9 years
Position: Center
Height/Weight: 6-11, 270 lb
How He Got Here: Signed by the Los Angeles Lakers to a one-year, $3.5 million contract in July. He suffered a season-ending torn ACL during a workout in August. Shortly after that, an arrest warrant was filed for Cousins over a domestic dispute in Alabama.
2018-19 Stats (Golden State): 25.7 minutes per game (career low), 30 games played, 30 starts, 16.3 PPG, 8.2 RPG, 3.6 APG, 1.3 STL, 1.5 BLK, 48% FG, 27.4% 3PT. Cousins rated out as “excellent” in transition opportunities, scoring 1.31 points per possession according to Synergy Sports. He also rated out in the 54th percentile as a post-up player with the Warriors last season.
2019-20 Outlook: Everything for Cousins’ 2020 outlook changed when he fell to a knee injury in August. He will miss the rest of the season and the Lakers have already been awarded a Disabled Player Exception of $1.75 million to help them sign another player to replace what they lost with Cousins. Also, his legal situation muddles his future with the team quite a bit. While his contract with the Lakers is guaranteed, the Lakers will probably have to cut him in order to add to their roster and sign a free agent to their team.
Anthony Davis had gone on the record more than once to discuss how excited he was to reunite with Cousins, as well as his former Pelicans teammate Rajon Rondo. To help fill the void left by the Cousins injury, the Lakers signed former Defensive Player of the Year Dwight Howard to a non-guaranteed contract last month.
Cousins’ 2020 will be spent rehabbing once again, just as he did for most of 2018 following his torn achilles in the 2017-18 season. His legal situation aside, Cousins is now fighting for his NBA life only a few years after being a perennial All-Star and an Olympic gold medalist. A torn achilles, a torn quad and a torn ACL in the span of two years has unquestionably changed his NBA outlook. And due to several circumstances, odds are he won’t be hanging out on the Lakers bench in street clothes for very long, if he does so at all.
