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Im tired of all the wild drives and shots at the rim, the awkward dribble moves that result in a wild toss up or turnover 90% of the time. Cousins just doesn't have the speed or athleticism to be a great 1 on 1 player or to be ISO'd at the top of the key so much. He's an average jump shooter at best, so will Cousins ever develop into a consistently efficient player? There's no doubt in my mind he'll be a quality player, but more of a do it all around player rather than a go to scorer.Would the old Kings have ISO'd Vlade or Brad Miller so much? I see his ceiling as more of a Vlade Divac than a Chris Webber.

Of course he will. He's only 20 years old.

Besides, most rookies do not come into the league shooting at a high %. For Cousins case, once he gets into an ideal shape and adjusted/tuning of the NBA, he will be better from the field.

We must not be watching the same games. Cousins has some post moves that are really advanced for any center in this league, let alone a rookie center who only played 1 year of college ball. He's a brilliant offensive player. Admittedly he does have games where you wonder what he's doing, plays when he forces the issue, and plays when he just travels. But have you not seen the magic he does when he posts up? He's single-handedly taken over games for us down there.

This post seriously confuses me. One, I think the premise is totally off as I discussed above. And two, he's a rookie who hasn't even played half a season, and we're asking will he "ever" become an efficient offensive player.

Durant was a 43% FG shooter as a rookie, went up to 48% the following season. Lebron was 41% as a rookie and got up to 47% the next year. Dirk was 40% as a rookie and got up to 46, 47, and even above 50 soon after. Bosh was 46% his rookie year and pretty quickly became a 50% guy. I'm really just clicking on random star players' career stats. This is a common occurrence in the NBA. Rookies generally don't come in and exhibit what they'll play like for the rest of their careers.

^The difference is Cousins is a 6'11 280 pound center and those guys are all perimeter players(even Bosh). Not only is he shooting 42% and averaging almost 3 TOs to his 2 assists, but his shot attempts at times are embarassing. I dont know if he's just forcing the issue or maybe he's just used to bullying his way to the basket against lesser competition, but he consistently embarasses himself when he goes 1 on 1.

With Westfail as the HC? Probably not.

But good news! His contract is up...in a year and a half...

Will he ever be? He was the last couple of weeks, but has since clearly worn down a bit even by his own addmission. I don't think he's the type of player that will go out and shoot 60% or anything, he's too finesse for that, and likes to use too many weapons. Once he starts getting some of the calls that he really deserves that % will go up. I'd say upper 40's to low 50's is possible.

He's very rhythmic with the way he plays as well. That's one of the reasons I think it's a mistake to sit him for 10-15 minutes stretches at a time foul trouble or not. He's the type that gets "hot" and can rack off 12 points in a flash. The other problem with Cousins right now is that he's not getting ANY easy baskets. Rarely do you see him assisted on a basket. It's all one on one or offensive put backs. That makes it very easy for other teams to defend.

Another problem is that for a good chunk of the season, when Westphal was running the offense more backwards than forwards, this team was entering the ball into him, Landry, and Jason with single digits left on the clock. The best post offense is run when you START down there, not expect to have a play made with such little time on the clock. That leaves your team with only one option that late and that's to shoot and the other team knows it.

Westphal needs to go to the drawing board to find easier opportunities for Cousins. Likewise Cousins needs to find spots on the floor where the opportunities are besides the offensive boards. Jason is very good at that. He's the type that is very opportunistic with his scoring. Jason should maybe show him some of what he does to get easy baskets from his teammates.

Speaking of offensive boards, I don't particularly agree with Westphals philosophy of attacking the defensive and offensive boards so hard. Cousins, Daly, and Thompson literally lose 5-6 easy defensive rebounding opportunities to guys like Casspi (Landry called him a "board stealer" last year ), Donte Greene, and Tyreke Evans. Send those guys to the other rim so the offense can be set up even earlier which in turn may open up more easy offensive opportunities. On the other end, sending so many guys to the offensive boards typically clogs the lane prematurely (making it hard on Cousins and Evans in particular) and leaves you open for cherry picking by the other team which has been a major problem this year. This team finally has bigs that can dominate the boards in Thompson, Cousins, and Dalembert, let them do the work! No reason for your entire team to start almost every successful defensive rebounding possession behind the half court line.

With all that said, the most important and positive thing is that Cousins is showing flashes of that one on one play. That's something you can't teach, and sets apart the true superstar types from the really good productive star types. Also, he's 20 years old! I think people forget this far too much. He's showing far more than what he's not showing, and the really great thing is that the things he's not showing eventually come around with age and experience. What he is showing you either typically have or don't, plain and simple.

sackings916 wrote:^The difference is Cousins is a 6'11 280 pound center and those guys are all perimeter players(even Bosh). Not only is he shooting 42% and averaging almost 3 TOs to his 2 assists, but his shot attempts at times are embarassing. I dont know if he's just forcing the issue or maybe he's just used to bullying his way to the basket against lesser competition, but he consistently embarasses himself when he goes 1 on 1.

Which in this offense a good chunk of his opportunities are perimeter shots BTW. The turnover problem creeps up here and there, but can you not remember the player we saw at the beginning of the year!? Just about every move resulted in a travel call! Right now he's clearly hitting the "rookie wall", and that started right before the road trip. Before that he has a nice stretch of over 50% shooting. One thing I hope he's learning is the kind of condition you have to be in to play the minutes he wants with this amount of games in front of you.

Like most of the posters, I also don't see a reason to worry yet. If Cousins is still playing like that in years 3 and 4, then I'll be worried. Hopefully by then Omri will be a consistently reliable 3 point threat, Tyreke will have learned to consistently set up the big men for easy baskets and be above 22 ppg and at least 7 apg, and whoever this year's draft pick ends up being will prove to be the perfect fit for the team, and we'll be set for another 5-6 years of deep playoff runs.

sackings916 wrote:Im tired of all the wild drives and shots at the rim, the awkward dribble moves that result in a wild toss up or turnover 90% of the time. Cousins just doesn't have the speed or athleticism to be a great 1 on 1 player or to be ISO'd at the top of the key so much. He's an average jump shooter at best, so will Cousins ever develop into a consistently efficient player? There's no doubt in my mind he'll be a quality player, but more of a do it all around player rather than a go to scorer.Would the old Kings have ISO'd Vlade or Brad Miller so much? I see his ceiling as more of a Vlade Divac than a Chris Webber.

Remember when we used to say that about Chris Webber?

I see Chris Webber being his ceiling if he's willing to stay in shape. He can't move like Webb, but Webber didn't live in the post whereas Cousins can.

He had a stretch of 20 point games over 50% shooting. Why are you so concerned about his offense right now as a 20 year old rookie. His takes these wild shots because he was so use to overpowering everyone in college he is still adjusting. All big men are projects, the same questions could have been ask about Howard and Bogut. Give him time.

ICMTM wrote:

sackings916 wrote:Im tired of all the wild drives and shots at the rim, the awkward dribble moves that result in a wild toss up or turnover 90% of the time. Cousins just doesn't have the speed or athleticism to be a great 1 on 1 player or to be ISO'd at the top of the key so much. He's an average jump shooter at best, so will Cousins ever develop into a consistently efficient player? There's no doubt in my mind he'll be a quality player, but more of a do it all around player rather than a go to scorer.Would the old Kings have ISO'd Vlade or Brad Miller so much? I see his ceiling as more of a Vlade Divac than a Chris Webber.

Remember when we used to say that about Chris Webber?

I see Chris Webber being his ceiling if he's willing to stay in shape. He can't move like Webb, but Webber didn't live in the post whereas Cousins can.

IIRC this was AFTER Webber's injuries. Cousins is healthy and young, hopefully its just the extra weight thats holding him back. I would like to see him play at 260.

I think the bigger questions is will Tyreke Evans ever become an efficient offensive player. I have more doubts in Tyreke as a basketball player than I do with Cousins. Tyreke's game is so dependent on his ability to get to the rim (which he's not finishing at very well maybe you can blame the ankle/foot eh) that his game better evolve otherwise he may not look as promising as a franchise savior as we had hoped after last year. If we could only blame 1 player for all of the Kings late game losses it would be Tyreke Evans. He is supposed to be the Kings best player and the best player on teams win games in the 4th quarter ala Kobe, what Joe Johnson did a few games ago against us, etc. I know he's only 21 and maybe that will come (hopefully soon) but I look at Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant and he's their age. He doesn't have what they have. So our best player really isn't a "best player" and therefore the reason we aren't a good team and maybe we have too high of expectations that we will be.

Yes he can. He'll never be Shaq efficient--at least not from the field. But he shows potential to be a very solid FT shooter (although he fluctuates from there now) with an ability to get to the line a lot. Once he figures out when and where to take good shots, that'll make a huge difference.

Conditioning also probably plays into it, but interestingly enough, Cuz has played easily his best basketball so far on back-to-backs as seen here. So I don't know how much of it necessarily is the issue of conditioning. Granted it's also a small sample size right now.

I think he'll always be a bit more of a volume scorer than a lot of bigs. But I think on that token, he'll also be a more consistent go-to option than others. Even Shaq couldn't have really won a ring by himself. Teams rarely went to him in crunch time because of his FTs. The Spurs don't go to Duncan all that often, and we may not go to Cuz all that much because we'll have Tyreke. But that's the kind of player he'll be I think.

It'll be interesting, because the guy can literally do just about everything, but if he can be dominant in the post, do you want him really doing other things on a consistent basis. I mean sure he'll have to stay out a little to bit to spread the floor when that's the better option, but in isolation, do you really want him anywhere but in the post? Post scorers are highly coveted for a reason. They are a completely rare and totally invaluable piece to an offense.

Anyway, as for the question, again, yes. He's 20 and has more talent than his brain can really handle right now. Give him a little time.

Totally my own opinion and in no way do i look at this as something that will ruin his career, its something some college kids bring to the pros and have to learn to get over.

I think Cousins problems sprout from not respecting who he plays against. He needs to eat some humble pie. Expect to be scored on, expect not score on 30%- 60% of shots you take on any given night. Expect that your talent level is not superior every night.

When he is playing 25 minutes a game, frustration sets in as soon as he can't have his way with the opposition. Clearly while watching you can see his head's not in the game for at least 5 minutes if not more. Those are what we call wasted minutes, which leads to poor production and a lot of criticism.

When Cousins realizes this and changes we will see him take a leap that we all dream he can take. Unfortunately, everyone who is over 27 knows that when your 20 years old no matter how many times someone tells you something to correct they probably won't until they learn the hard way from their mistakes. Cousins rookie year will be his gut check, his wake up call. I look for more of the same from Cousins as the year goes on. I expect to see a totally different player next year tho. This guy has all the tools to be everything we all think he can be and more. You can have all the talent in the world but if mentally your not playing the right way you will never reach your potential.

sackings916 wrote:

ICMTM wrote:

sackings916 wrote:Im tired of all the wild drives and shots at the rim, the awkward dribble moves that result in a wild toss up or turnover 90% of the time. Cousins just doesn't have the speed or athleticism to be a great 1 on 1 player or to be ISO'd at the top of the key so much. He's an average jump shooter at best, so will Cousins ever develop into a consistently efficient player? There's no doubt in my mind he'll be a quality player, but more of a do it all around player rather than a go to scorer.Would the old Kings have ISO'd Vlade or Brad Miller so much? I see his ceiling as more of a Vlade Divac than a Chris Webber.

Remember when we used to say that about Chris Webber?

I see Chris Webber being his ceiling if he's willing to stay in shape. He can't move like Webb, but Webber didn't live in the post whereas Cousins can.

IIRC this was AFTER Webber's injuries. Cousins is healthy and young, hopefully its just the extra weight thats holding him back. I would like to see him play at 260.

He might be near there already. I've heard a lot of comments from people about how much skinnier he looks. I think he's lost a good deal of weight. Might have been a little too much to quick in fact.

^I doubt he's there just yet. He does look a lot skinnier than what he was but I think he was heavier than what he was listed at. And even if he was there his body fat is still too high. There's no definition to his frame at all.

I don't think Demarcus losing weight is his issue. Hell, he can play just fine at 270-280 so use that as the blessing it is, he just needs to get his cardio up. Two totally different realms of physical fitness.

I would like him to lose some weight so he can play the 4.

If that's the case, I say where he's at right now might be good. Once again, conditioning. I don't think getting Cousins' weight down in order to play the 4 would be all that great of an idea depending on how much and how difficult it is for him to retain that weight loss. I say keep him at 270 and try and let PF's stop him.

As always, what "position" one plays largely depends on who they guard. I don't see Cousins' guarding 4's full time although he's done a really decent job on guys like Josh Smith and Blake Griffin when he's guarded them. Shockingly good in fact. Still, use his size against the C's of the league. It's amazing the difference between our post D this year and with Hawes last year and BMiller before him. For instance, Joel Wiltbilla may be dead if last night was any indication! hahahaha. He's got decent mobility but I don't think any amount of weight loss is going to dramatically effect certain athletic aspects of his game to the extent that it outweighs the advantage his hugeness gives him. I think he's pretty good after getting down to whatever he's at now. Next step should be conditioning and maybe some chiseling. He's just a big guy period. Very big shoulders and a big waist. Can't really change that all that much.

SacKingZZZ wrote: Next step should be conditioning and maybe some chiseling.

This is essentially losing weight. Losing 10 pounds would make him a step quicker, 20 pounds would make him that much quicker and his conditioning would be MUCH better. Cousins would be a beast 20 pounds lighter.