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His usage rate this year is nearly unprecedented for a big man in the last few decades and is far higher even Hakeem and Shaq at their peak. But while he's using an absolutely absurd amount of possessions, he's using them very inefficiently. Is this helpful? I'm guessing no, but can there be any benefit from getting up so many low efficiency looks?

i was wondering this because it seems like chucking/volume scoring taken to its greatest extreme. It's not even similar to years from Iverson or Jermaine O'Neal where the teams might be argued to be set up for them to chuck because high efficiency offense didn't matter as much with the great defense their teams played on the other end.

Anectodal evidence because sample size is still small, but the Kings are -9 with him on the court, and +2 with him off. Not a good sign, especially when you play on a bad team. Defense is where he seems to hurt them the most though. On Offense the Kings go from being a 101 offensive team with him, to 104 without him

Updating one month later. He's at medium effiency now, I guess low for a center but medium overall, Still high usage. His plus/minus per game is slightly above the team average.

Jazzfan12 wrote:His usage rate this year is nearly unprecedented for a big man in the last few decades and is far higher even Hakeem and Shaq at their peak. But while he's using an absolutely absurd amount of possessions, he's using them very inefficiently. Is this helpful? I'm guessing no, but can there be any benefit from getting up so many low efficiency looks?

i was wondering this because it seems like chucking/volume scoring taken to its greatest extreme. It's not even similar to years from Iverson or Jermaine O'Neal where the teams might be argued to be set up for them to chuck because high efficiency offense didn't matter as much with the great defense their teams played on the other end.

I don't think it's the case with Cousins and the Kings, but the benefit can exist: someone needs to put up the shots and perhaps they'll be even less efficient if they're distributed among the low-usage players.

I don't agree with your second paragraph. Offensive efficiency doesn't become less important because the teams are better or worse defensively

Iverson on the 76ers is actually a good example of the benefit you're wondering about: Iverson's high-usage low efficient shooting was very probably their optimal offensive strategy.

There is a clear benefit to crappy volume scorer while your team O is even worse.

After that, diminishing returns.

Basically, he's bootstrapping a crap offensive team. I think he is due for regression based on how he is reaching the results he has, but right now, SAC doesn't really have better options. It isn't a wicked strategy for a good team, but Sacramento isn't that anyway.