Three reasons the DeMarcus Cousins-Anthony Davis pairing won’t work in New Orleans

2. Meshing personality and style

The elephant in the room in any debate over what the Kings ultimately moved Cousins for is just how damaged the perception of Boogie is around the league.

Is it possible that the Kings had reached a point where they just wanted to move on from Cousins, as a personality, at all costs? Regardless of his talent, has Cousins reputation really reached a point where this was the most that any team was prepared to give up for him?

When these kind of questions can even be raised, a situation has moved long past the point where a fit for that player can just be assumed in a new city with a new team. Although Davis would seem like the kind of less-combustible personality that you’d want a superstar paired with Cousins to be, adding a character and voice as loud as Boogie’s to the locker room will certainly alter the dynamic in New Orleans.

We already know that Cousins was hoping to stay in Sacramento long-term, so not only do we have to question how he’ll react to being traded, but also how he’ll fit in with a new coach. Cousins has had more than his fair share of troubles with coaches in the past. Having seemed to have found a good fit alongside Dave Joerger this year, how will his relationship now play out with a more old-school coach like Alvin Gentry?

Making that a potentially challenging adjustment for the player, coach and the team is the fact that although the trade makes New Orleans richer in a talent sense, it muddles the identity they were looking to establish when Gentry was hired.

The focus of Gentry’s Pelicans was supposed to be pace and space, and even with two of the more athletic big men in the league, that’s a strategy that’s going to become harder to implement when you’re building around getting touches down low for two players.

The Pelicans have picked up an elite player, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be remotely coherent on the court.