When we didn't end up resigning DeMarcus Cousins before this season began, there was a mixed reaction. A lot of people, like me, thought it was a good thing: that you can't really offer huge sums of money to a guy coming off such a big injury, and that the $20m per we had offered him before the end of the season was more than reasonable given the circumstances.
A lot of other people thought it was a very bad thing: Cousins, they said, was a fantastic player despite his faults, and would recover well enough that paying him to stay would be worth it. They also added that resigning Cousins would make AD more likely to stay in the long run.
So, who was right?
First things first, let's talk AD: would resigning Cousins have made AD stay? My answer is, kind of disappointingly, that we can't know. There is a good chance that it would have done, but given that Cousins didn't come back until essentially the all-star break, by which point AD had already requested a trade, there's a strong possibility that AD would have asked out anyway before Cousins had even touched the court again. On the other hand, maybe Cousins being around would have changed circumstances somewhat: maybe Rondo stays too if Cousins does, and the additional continuity stabilises the team despite struggles. I can't say, and neither can anyone else, so it's a tough one.
Cousins has come back now though, and he has played 15 games for the Warriors. That's a big enough sample size to make some comments on how he looks: obviously it's not enough games to say definitively how he has recovered, but we can make a few judgements.
In essentially 25 minutes per game, Cousins is averaging: 15 points, 8 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.3 steals, 1.4 blocks, 2.3 turnovers, and 3.7 fouls per game. He is shooting 43% from the floor and 28% from 3. His usage rating is 27.5%, he is averaging 0.145 WS/48, his PER is 20.4. His interior defense has been pretty solid, with opponents shooting 6.5% worse than their averages within 6 feet. His perimeter defense, however, has been appallingly dreadful, as opponents shoot 7.6% better than their averages in the midrange, and 11.2% better from beyond the arc when Cousins is their primary defender.
His on-off numbers also tell a pretty unfortunate story. When Cousins is on the court, the Warriors are -4.1 worse off in terms of their offensive rating, and their opponents are +1.7. That tells us something pretty simple: when Cousins is on court, the Warriors can't score normally, but their defense sinks a little. This is probably because Cousins is playing with a pretty big usage rating, but is shooting very very poorly.
This defensive issue plays out on other areas of the court too. The Warriors are 3.3% worse in terms of rebounding rate when Cousins is on the floor, and opponents see an increase of 5.7% in terms of their assists percentage.
So what does this mean? It means that when Cousins plays, he makes the Warriors worse. Opponents get more assists, shoot better (though barely), have better offensive success, rebound more, get more blocks, and get more steals when Cousins is on the court. Meanwhile, the Warriors rebound far worse, their offensive rating crashes, and their defense becomes a lot weaker, especially at the perimeter, where Cousins is catastrophically poor defensively. To put it this way: Cousins is as bad defending the 3pt line, as Rudy Gobert was good at defending the rim in his DPOY season. Cousins is shooting poorly, from all over the floor, despite taking a ton of shots. He is averaging fouling out per 36.
All that, and he couldn't even play until well into the season. So the question is, now that we know how he looks coming back off the injury, and he looks pretty bad, did we do the right thing by refusing to cash him out? I think so. What do you think?
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