USA Basketball Changed DeMarcus Cousins’ Game for the Better
By Will Osgood
USA Basketball was good to DeMarcus Cousins and it’s translating to this NBA season
DeMarcus Cousins has been the second best player in the NBA through one month of action. In the same light, he’s been the second most valuable. The man ahead of him, is of course, fellow Kentucky Wildcat one-and-done Anthony Davis, who joined Cousins in the Team USA frontcourt this summer at the FIBA World Cup.
Perhaps the best indication of his value comes when looking at his Win Shares statistic. His best season to date was last year when he finished the year with 7.9—a fine number by the way. This year he already has 2.2, which puts him on pace to destroy that number. 2.2 win shares equals out to .224/48 minutes. Last season’s 7.9 came in at .166/48.
Win Shares are a great statistic since they attempt to isolate one single player and determine how much his efforts contributed to a team’s success. For proof of my original thesis—that Anthony Davis has been the most valuable player in the league in the early part of this season—Davis has 3.1 total Win Shares.
For Cousins, 0.9 of the 2.2 Win Shares have been defensive, meaning the player once thought to be only interested on the offensive end, or in himself, or any other narrative that’s been told of our favorite “Boogie Man”, are no longer true. Playing on Team USA this summer alongside Anthony Davis seems to have helped develop his game in this area.
It probably also did not hurt to learn from some of the best defensive minds in basketball. Tom Thibodeau, Monty Williams and Jim Boeheim were all assistant coaches on Coach K’s staff—and all are noted defensive minds.
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Cousins was fortunate to return to his NBA team this season with a coach prepared to improve his squad on the defensive end. Undoubtedly Cousins has been a major reason for the team’s improvement, using Mike Malone’s defensive principles.
The Kings are allowing opposing offenses to shoot 62.1 percent within five feet of the rim, according to NBA.com, which is far from an elite mark. But the midrange game of opposing offenses have been rather pedestrian. The numbers improve for teams when shooting from distance.
More to the point, Cousins has 1.1 steals per game (amazing for a center) and 1.5 blocks per game. More impressively, of NBA big men playing regular minutes, Cousins has one of the best field goal percentages given up for shots taken near the rim, at just 43 percent (by comparison Davis has given up 52 percent, while Dwight Howard is the only notable player with a lower percentage given up, 39.5 percent).
Simply put, “Boogie” is doing things defensively we only saw glimpses of in past seasons, but always knew he could if he only applied himself on that end.
And then there’s the offensive end, where he’s been even more dynamic than he was a season ago.
Through a month’s full of games, his offensive numbers are up across the board. For the first time in his career, he is shooting over 50 percent from the field. He’s shooting 80 percent from the charity stripe, which is probably his greatest area of improvement on the offensive end (he shot a career best 72 percent in 2013-14).
His PER (Player Efficiency Rating) is 27.9—which is really good, and 1.8 better than his best mark a season ago. And his true shooting percentage of .586 is by far the best of his career. But all of these statistics reflect a dangerous tendency, that is to make too much of a small sample size.
His turnover percentage is a tad bit up, which can probably be explained by the fact that his usage rate has grown to 33.1 percent—in other words one-third of the Kings’ offense is run through, and/or for, Cousins. His assist percentage has dipped a tad, which is curious given the usage increase (which to be fair is rather minimal).
But there’s a skill Cousins possesses that few other players do. He scores, and scores a lot. Despite double teams, hard fouls and other various defensive tactics—which may or may not be technically legal—Cousins is an elite scorer in the post. Of course his 6’11”, 270 pound frame helps in that regard.
His moves and quickness for a man that size are also impressive. But unbeknownst to the common fan, Cousins is actually showing a higher basketball IQ in this his fourth season in the league.
He’s taking a career high 45 percent of his field goal attempts from three feet in. Naturally, he is making a career high 71.2 percent of those attempts. That’s one marked difference. The other: Cousins has dramatically improved his midrange game.
From 10-15 feet away from the basket, “Boogie” is shooting 66.7 percent. He is taking far fewer of said shots, but making them much more often. In other words, his shot selection is drastically better. He’s only taking those shots when he knows he can make them.
The result, as stated from the start, is that “Boogie” has been one of the best offensive players in the league through one month. He of course beat out Anthony Davis this past week for Player of the Week. And he’s the only real challenger to Davis in the league’s first Player of the Month award for November.
Davis grew from his Olympic experience, and likely so did the other 10 player who helped Team USA capture the 2014 World Cup title. None have benefitted more than Cousins, though, who for the first time is experiencing some team success at the NBA level—aiding his Kings team to its’ best start in a number of years, standing at 9-6 heading into Friday’s action.
As Team USA executive director Jerry Colangelo mentioned in this fantastic piece back in September, “You can use all the superlatives you want and apply them to DeMarcus. He made the team, made a major contribution, made tremendous strides. In the locker room after our win over Serbia, DeMarcus in particular was emotional. He hugged me and thanked me for putting him on the team, and I told him, ‘the past is the past. This is the beginning of your career. Take everything you learned back to Sacramento. You can build on this and have a tremendous career.’ ”
So far, in 15 games, DeMarcus has done that. And then some.
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