pipe dream trade

[chad42]

Make a move for Kevin Love. Cousins, Garcia, jimmer and this years unprotected 1st for Love and Derrick Williams?

[PaKwAn]

Love will just bolt to another team once his contract is up..

[kevin44]

No quality players will come here. Love would be great to build around, but I believe PakwAn is right he would leave once his contact is up.

[SacKingZZZ]

Never mistake elite production for elite. Rather hold onto Cousins myself, I think he at least has the potential to take over games and that's what makes players truly elite.

[deNIEd]

Never mistake elite production for elite. Rather hold onto Cousins myself, I think he at least has the potential to take over games and that's what makes players truly elite.

You are absolutely delusional if you think Love isn't elite.

[Wolfay]

Never mistake elite production for elite. Rather hold onto Cousins myself, I think he at least has the potential to take over games and that's what makes players truly elite.

You are absolutely delusional if you think Love isn't elite.

Elite for fantasy basketball.

[OGSactownballer]

Exactly.

Love looks really nice on the stat sheet and with other talent around him. But he is a number two on a championship team.

[SacKingZZZ]

Never mistake elite production for elite. Rather hold onto Cousins myself, I think he at least has the potential to take over games and that's what makes players truly elite.

You are absolutely delusional if you think Love isn't elite.

Quite a few truly elite players have taken steps back in production during the year they've won it all. Delusional? History doesn't necessarily concur.

Love is a fantastic player but similar to a Blake Griffin, he has questionable ability at truly taking over a game without help from somewhere or in the context of an offensive system.

[VeeJay24]

Never mistake elite production for elite. Rather hold onto Cousins myself, I think he at least has the potential to take over games and that's what makes players truly elite.

You are absolutely delusional if you think Love isn't elite.

Quite a few truly elite players have taken steps back in production during the year they've won it all. Delusional? History doesn't necessarily concur.

Love is a fantastic player but similar to a Blake Griffin, he has questionable ability at truly taking over a game without help from somewhere or in the context of an offensive system.

Everything you say may be true; but what good is to have a player who has elite talent but you can't count on every night to be available? How long do you wait on Cousins to grow up? If Love is available and the Wolves are willing to take Cousins; the Kings need to jump on it.

[deNIEd]

Never mistake elite production for elite. Rather hold onto Cousins myself, I think he at least has the potential to take over games and that's what makes players truly elite.

You are absolutely delusional if you think Love isn't elite.

Quite a few truly elite players have taken steps back in production during the year they've won it all. Delusional? History doesn't necessarily concur.

Love is a fantastic player but similar to a Blake Griffin, he has questionable ability at truly taking over a game without help from somewhere or in the context of an offensive system.

If you don't consider Love and Griffin elite, Sacramento might as well give up because we have no one that will ever come close to becoming elite.

[SacKingZZZ]

Don't get me wrong, "elite production" is good, but there are a few others in this thread that summed it up just fine. Love and Griffin are strong, awesome number 2 options potentially, but how far does Griffin get without a Chris Paul or at least the exact right kind of team? They aren't really the types that you just give the ball to and say, "go get him big fella". Cousins is being thrown into the fire and all you can hope is that he's learning, I've never seen a big man have to work so hard to get points because there just isn't any kind of support to help him be more productive. At his age it's probably a wonder he is so productive.

At any given point in the NBA there are probably no more than 4-5 of those types of players that you can just clear out for on most plays and still remain competitive, at least at that superstar level. Cousins has shown flashes of potentially being able to do that. Will he mature enough to get there? I don't know, but it's worth it to find out IMO. Love needs to not be so butt hurt because his owner might be somewhat right in this regard. If this team were set with more of a solid foundation personnel wise you may want to go after a Kevin Love, if Reke looked to be a superstar in the making he and Love would make an awesome duo, but as I was saying, Reke being here would have a lot to do with how much you would value Love, a workhorse with good 3 point spot shooting skills. One to one, on their own in terms of potential, I'm still taking Cousins.

[deNIEd]

Don't get me wrong, "elite production" is good, but there are a few others in this thread that summed it up just fine. Love and Griffin are strong, awesome number 2 options potentially, but how far does Griffin get without a Chris Paul or at least the exact right kind of team? They aren't really the types that you just give the ball to and say, "go get him big fella". Cousins is being thrown into the fire and all you can hope is that he's learning, I've never seen a big man have to work so hard to get points because there just isn't any kind of support to help him be more productive. At his age it's probably a wonder he is so productive.

At any given point in the NBA there are probably no more than 4-5 of those types of players that you can just clear out for on most plays and still remain competitive, at least at that superstar level. Cousins has shown flashes of potentially being able to do that. Will he mature enough to get there? I don't know, but it's worth it to find out IMO. Love needs to not be so butt hurt because his owner might be somewhat right in this regard. If this team were set with more of a solid foundation personnel wise you may want to go after a Kevin Love, if Reke looked to be a superstar in the making he and Love would make an awesome duo, but as I was saying, Reke being here would have a lot to do with how much you would value Love, a workhorse with good 3 point spot shooting skills. One to one, on their own in terms of potential, I'm still taking Cousins.

This is just being extremely hypocritical.

I can agree with you that there are only a handful of "elite players" (depends on the definition), but if DeMarcus has shown flashes of potentially being "elite," than so has Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Greg Oden, Andrew Bynum, Jrue Holiday, Tyreke, Beasley, OJ Mayo, Brook Lopez, John Wall, Greg Monroe, etc., etc.

Cousins has shown signs that he can become a dominant player if he pieces everything together, but so has a good handful of young players as well. The only difference is, which players are more likely to actually put everything together. At this point, is saying DeMarcus will mature really that much safer than Tyreke will develop a jump shot?

[SacKingZZZ]

Don't get me wrong, "elite production" is good, but there are a few others in this thread that summed it up just fine. Love and Griffin are strong, awesome number 2 options potentially, but how far does Griffin get without a Chris Paul or at least the exact right kind of team? They aren't really the types that you just give the ball to and say, "go get him big fella". Cousins is being thrown into the fire and all you can hope is that he's learning, I've never seen a big man have to work so hard to get points because there just isn't any kind of support to help him be more productive. At his age it's probably a wonder he is so productive.

At any given point in the NBA there are probably no more than 4-5 of those types of players that you can just clear out for on most plays and still remain competitive, at least at that superstar level. Cousins has shown flashes of potentially being able to do that. Will he mature enough to get there? I don't know, but it's worth it to find out IMO. Love needs to not be so butt hurt because his owner might be somewhat right in this regard. If this team were set with more of a solid foundation personnel wise you may want to go after a Kevin Love, if Reke looked to be a superstar in the making he and Love would make an awesome duo, but as I was saying, Reke being here would have a lot to do with how much you would value Love, a workhorse with good 3 point spot shooting skills. One to one, on their own in terms of potential, I'm still taking Cousins.

This is just being extremely hypocritical.

I can agree with you that there are only a handful of "elite players" (depends on the definition), but if DeMarcus has shown flashes of potentially being "elite," than so has Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Greg Oden, Andrew Bynum, Jrue Holiday, Tyreke, Beasley, OJ Mayo, Brook Lopez, John Wall, Greg Monroe, etc., etc.

Cousins has shown signs that he can become a dominant player if he pieces everything together, but so has a good handful of young players as well. The only difference is, which players are more likely to actually put everything together. At this point, is saying DeMarcus will mature really that much safer than Tyreke will develop a jump shot?

There is a difference in skill set in this comparison. When you have a full C sized player taking other bigs off the dribble, that's special. When you have a big that has basically been asked to create the majority of his own offense so early in his career and not look terrible game in game out, that's another sign. Situation plays into it, but it's the skillset differences, the size differences, the positional differences that weigh heavily into a debate like this. This particular conversation was about Kevin Love which led into Blake Griffin, not any of the other players you mentioned were the basis for any point I was making so that's an entirely different set of parameters. I didn't say that Cousins was the only young player with elite potential, I said in relation to Kevin Love I see it in Cousins, not so much in Love. At least not enough to bend over to get Kevin Love at any cost.

[boogie-reke]

Kahn passed on him on draft night already.

No way Minni takes it.

[youngthegiant]

Denver Trades: Kenneth Faried, Wilson Chandler, Kosta Koufos, 13 1st rd pick, 15 1st rd pick

Sacramento Trades: Demarcus Cousins, Francisco Garcia

[perezident]

^ Lol! No way Isiah Thomas

[ICMTM]

At this time Love > Cousins AND You have a general idea of who Kevin Love will be. Right now NOBODY can predict how DeMarcus Cousins' career will go. Yes he is the more talented of the two players BUT he's also the guy more likely to fail as a player.

I'm not sure Cousins will get it until he is in his late 20's if at all. I would make the move for K-Love! Sometimes the better fit works out than the better player. We also need guys who will buy into playing as a team. Cousins still plays on his own island.

[SacKingZZZ]

That's the catch 22 in trading a player like Cousins, sure thing vs. potential, potentially pulling a Golden State Chris Webber style whoopsie in the end. With the right players and system around him, I think he'd be fighting Howard for that number 1 spot TODAY. This franchise is a mess and it's only Petrie who can fix it because to their credit, the Maloofs have stepped out of the way and let Geoff do his job the last few years. The problem is every move he's made is a move that needs to have 1-2 followups in order for it to make sense, but those followups have yet to happen.

Show us Cousins in a system that is beneficial to him with players around him that make the game easier for him and we'll know what or who DeMarcus Cousins will be . No more of this pushing boulders uphill bull****.

[chad42]

At this time Love > Cousins AND You have a general idea of who Kevin Love will be. Right now NOBODY can predict how DeMarcus Cousins' career will go. Yes he is the more talented of the two players BUT he's also the guy more likely to fail as a player.

I'm not sure Cousins will get it until he is in his late 20's if at all. I would make the move for K-Love! Sometimes the better fit works out than the better player. We also need guys who will buy into playing as a team. Cousins still plays on his own island.

Exactly what I was thinking with this trade. Love is only 2 years older, has excellent production and despite being a bit of distraction recently, he has his head on straighter than Boogie. He is an All-Star, a dream team member and i think would be more attractive teammate to future free agents.

As far as the system or the players around Cousins being the problem, i'm curious whats the ideal system for cousins to play in, and what are some examples of players that would fit better with him.

[SacKingZZZ]

Number one, plenty of floor spreading shooters who are comfortable at spot shooting from at least the short corner 3. Thornton, Jimmer, and a few others fit the bill, but you ideally want a SF that can spread the floor, especially if Tyreke is a fixture in Sac. Cousins sees the paint packed way too often because teams are simply daring his wings to shoot by playing so far off of them and they just wait in the paint to help. Cousins isn't a true post player but he is a faceup big who likes to drive. Much easier driving against 1 defender and having players to dish off to on the outside if they collapse. If you have players who will hit that wide open 3, teams will have to have to play him straight up. Cisco has helped a little in that regard but without Evans and Thornton there is just such a lack of talent available that it goes unnoticed. That and things are so down at this point hardly anyone is passing. Those who don't have the ball figure they'll never get it and those with it think if they give it up they'll never see it again. This teams flaw is pretty much every decent shooter is right around that 6 ft mark, that doesn't help you. They need that SF who can shoot.

Number two, a defensive presence at PF that can preferably deter shots at the rim and play pick and roll defense so Cousins doesn't have to carry the burden of being the main big man pick and roll defender. He's actually pretty good at it but it's tough to have your number 1 option also be your main pnr defending big. I still want to see Chuck Hayes and Cousins play together, Smart played them together for awhile and the difference defensively was noticeable to say the least. Hayes is a great pick and roll defender. Jason Thompson is one of the worst help defense bigs I think I've seen. He's an offensively skilled hustle rebounder, not a defender. He can put up numbers but effecting the game on defense is not his forte.

Number three, players that are willing to move without the ball via backcuts and pin downs. They have really gone away from this lately and it's a shame that when DeMarcus Cousins has the ball he isn't being used as a facilitator at least half the time. He has special passing skills that are just going completely underutilized as this team has started to once again forcefeed a pick and roll game that suits almost none of the talent on this team. This is a skilled team, not a strong finishing team, they have to use that skill.

System wise it's been obvious, a motion based system. Smart and Westphal both have tried to instill the Triangle and have utilized parts of the Princeton, and after all, this is a Geoff Petrie team. They need to stick with that and Smart really screwed the pooch this summer by, by his own admission, not even focusing on the offense. In fact, this teams biggest problem was the offense! Just a complete lack of identity even if the talent elevated it to looking better than it really was last year. The Triangle offense is not the most complicated offense in terms of set plays, but it's very difficult to execute on the basis that it has very few set called plays to begin with. It relies on spreading the floor, chemistry, and timing. Uh, Mr. 6th best offense in the league clearly didn't understand that but why would he? He's a meat and potatoes pick and roll coach. You just don't decide you're a Triangle team and then not work on it at all, Phil Jackson turned over in his grave on that one and he isn't even dead yet.

Jerry Reynolds hit the nail on the head the other night, this team needs to be a 23-24 apg team every night. When they pass and play motion they have potential. When they execute clear out after clear out and stand around they look bad and as a result the players asked to go iso time and time again look bad. A predictable offense is an offense you can shut down and teams have done that pretty much all year.