DeMarcus Cousins Future With Lakers In Our Season Preview
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00:00:07
Hello, Lakers Nation.
00:00:08
My name is Trevor Lane, senior writer for lakers nation dot com.
00:00:11
And today we get to kick off the Lakers nation previews.
00:00:16
We're gonna be taking a look at each player leading up to the start of the Lakers training camp. Super excited.
00:00:22
Can't wait to dive in.
00:00:23
And today, well, we start kind of on a sad note, I guess we start with the Marcus Cousins Boogie.
00:00:29
The guy that we thought was going to be the X factor for the Lakers this season, Of course, tears.
00:00:34
His A c l isn't gonna happen.
00:00:36
Probably not going to play it all this season.
00:00:37
But you know what? Don't write him off just yet.
00:00:40
I'm gonna get into why, But before we dive into everything, okay, we got to talk about the elephant in the room.
00:00:47
Obviously, he's got the legal issues going on, right? The alleged threats that he made it to his ex.
00:00:53
We've all heard the recording at this point.
00:00:56
Look, that's that's messy, messy stuff, and perhaps the Lakers decide that they just don't want to get involved with this.
00:01:02
It's possible the Lakers just completely cut ties.
00:01:05
Would DeMarcus cousins and say no, we're not dealing with this.
00:01:08
But with this show moving forward, we're gonna assume that somehow they find a way around that that somehow things get get resolved and cousins is able to move forward.
00:01:19
Okay? And again, I'm not.
00:01:20
I'm no legal expert or anything like that.
00:01:22
So I can't say exactly what might happen or anything like that.
00:01:25
But let's assume for the moment that they do find a way to resolve that issue.
00:01:30
And the Lakers decided to move past it and continue their relationship with DeMarcus cousins.
00:01:34
That's a big hurled to clear.
00:01:36
Don't get me wrong.
00:01:37
I'm not saying it's likely or anything like that.
00:01:39
But let's move forward.
00:01:40
Assuming that that's what does take place, because I think if that happens, you can make a real argument for DeMarcus cousins, maintaining a relationship with the Lakers and perhaps coming back to the Lakers next season, which I probably wouldn't have been saying if he had stayed healthy.
00:01:56
And I'm gonna get into that in just a moment.
00:01:59
But first so cousins injury a tourney C l most likely he's out for the season.
00:02:03
Okay, there's a slim chance, maybe come back for the very, very end of the season.
00:02:08
But again by that point, depending on where the Lakers are at, they may not want to try to even integrate DeMarcus cousins into their lineup.
00:02:15
At that stage, it may just be better to let him let him.
00:02:18
He'll let him be 100% let him have a full off season, and then he contact in the next season, assuming he still wants to play basketball.
00:02:24
This is a guy who's been besieged by injuries.
00:02:27
I mean, we've got the Tauron Achilles and then the quad.
00:02:30
They're in the playoffs last year and now Susie, it's healthy and he's looking good.
00:02:34
He's looking trim and fit and ready to go torn a c L unfortunate stuff.
00:02:39
And this is a guy who put up 16.
00:02:41
3 points, 8.
00:02:42
2 boards, 3.
00:02:43
6 assists, 1.
00:02:44
3 steals, 1.
00:02:45
5 blocks.
00:02:46
Are you kidding me? He stuffed the stat sheet for the Golden State Warriors last season, and he didn't look right if you watch the games.
00:02:53
He did not look right.
00:02:54
He didn't look like the DaMarcus cousins of old.
00:02:56
He looked a step slow.
00:02:58
He looked like he didn't have lift.
00:02:59
Those were all issues and concerns, and yet he still got the job done.
00:03:04
This guy's a very, very talented basketball player, and it's It's certainly unfortunate that now he is unable to play due to this injury reason that he would have been tremendous with Lakers this season.
00:03:14
But as I said, I think it might be more likely that we see DeMarcus cousins in the Lakers uniform next season again.
00:03:23
If they can get past the let the the legal issue because of this injury, see the way we're approaching this.
00:03:30
Before it was eight DeMarcus cousins shows up this season, and in 2019 2020 he shows out he does his thing, and he puts up even numbers similar to what he did with Gold State. That would be fine.
00:03:40
He's probably gone in free agency because the most the Lakers would have been able to offer next summer would have been there mid level exception of just over $9 million.
00:03:48
Well, assuming cousins proves himself to be the player we know he can be and he had stayed healthy, somebody would have given him more than that.
00:03:56
Certainly that offer would have been there for him.
00:03:58
So most likely the Lakers wouldn't be able to come close to it, and Cousins would have gone somewhere else.
00:04:03
Now, though, it's hard to imagine cousins getting anything more than the mid level exception.
00:04:08
Assuming he still wants to play basketball and he's able to get himself back into shape, he's gonna need to prove it, prove that he can stay healthy.
00:04:15
And so you could see the Lakers potentially taking a gamble on him on at a a full veteran minimum contract, a veteran minimum deal.
00:04:23
The nice thing about that is it doesn't count against you in terms of cap space.
00:04:27
Not that the Lakers were gonna have cap space assuming knock on wood that they re sign Anthony Davis.
00:04:32
They will be capped out, but it means they won't have to dip into their mid level exception if they can keep him around on a veteran minimum deal again.
00:04:40
Will they actually want to keep him around? Who knows? Look, maybe Dwight Howard and Javale McGee become the amazing tandem that that we're all kind of hoping they can be, and they decided to just roll with those two guys moving forward and that's it.
00:04:53
And the story, and they're not gonna gonna bring back to Marcus Cousins.
00:04:56
That's certainly possible.
00:04:57
But the talent is here for cousins, and the Fit is their cousins.
00:05:01
Playing alongside Anthony Davis.
00:05:03
He gives you the floor spacing that 80 needs.
00:05:06
Plus, he's got the size to bang down low.
00:05:08
And that's something that is important to Anthony Davis because he doesn't want his body to take the pounding of playing against fives.
00:05:14
All season long, we've heard it time and time again, he's gonna be playing power forward.
00:05:18
It's part of why the Lakers had to go sign Dwight Howard after Cousins got hurt.
00:05:22
They needed big bodies, so cousins would be a nice fit if he can get healthy.
00:05:27
If he can come back 100% healthy now, the Lakers did apply for an injury exception.
00:05:33
That's only gonna be about 1.
00:05:34
75 million.
00:05:36
Not a whole heck of lot.
00:05:37
Should they trade cousins? Should they wave him before before they use that money, that money would go away, But again, that's not a lot of cash.
00:05:44
They're not gonna be able to do much with it.
00:05:46
Maybe they can pick up somebody somewhere around the middle of the season.
00:05:49
If somebody gets cut from another team, perhaps that's possible.
00:05:53
But again, most likely that money is going to go unused.
00:05:57
They could still wave DeMarcus cousins, though.
00:05:59
There is a riel avenue here for waving to Marcus Husbands.
00:06:03
And that's if somebody else pops up like, let's say, I don't know the guy that I talked about on the last video, Andre Iguodala.
00:06:10
Let's say the Memphis Grizzlies finally come to their senses and they reach a buyout with a D herbicide with a I, and they go ahead and buy him out.
00:06:20
Then maybe the Lakers need a roster spot right now.
00:06:22
They have 15 guaranteed con contracts with cousins still sitting on their roster.
00:06:27
They may need that roster spot to bring in somebody like an Iguodala, and then they cut to Marcus Cousins.
00:06:32
Now I caution everybody, though.
00:06:34
If they cut to Marcus Cousins, you see that news come down.
00:06:37
That does not mean that they're severing ties with him.
00:06:40
If something specifically says that they're severing ties because of the legal issues or whatever, then that's a different story.
00:06:47
But just cutting him doesn't mean that he's not part of the future because again operating under the under the assumption that he gets a veteran minimum deal next summer, it doesn't really matter if he has years of service with the Lakers or anything like that.
00:07:00
We're not worried about his bird rights or anything of that nature.
00:07:04
So in that case, cutting to Marcus Cousins doesn't necessarily mean he wouldn't come back next summer.
00:07:10
In fact, they could still have him training at the Lakers facility and rehabbing at the facility.
00:07:14
That's that's something that the N V.
00:07:16
A would most likely allow them to do.
00:07:18
So just because they cut him to free up a roster spot doesn't necessarily mean his time with the Lakers is totally done, or that he won't come back next summer.
00:07:26
In fact, it's still very much a possibility.
00:07:29
UH, one other angle that we need to talk about regarding DeMarcus cousins and potentially coming back.
00:07:35
Anthony Davis.
00:07:36
Anthony Davis himself.
00:07:37
Yes, but this is what Anthony Davis said way back in November of 2018 feels like a lifetime ago.
00:07:44
But November 2018 Anthony Davis told ESPN Cousins will be a free agent next year, hopefully down the line, we can reconnect way back.
00:07:54
Way back then.
00:07:55
He was already looking forward to DeMarcus cousins, being a free agent the following summer and potentially teaming up with him.
00:08:02
Anthony Davis wants to you play with the Marcus Cousins.
00:08:05
Why is that relevant with Lakers? Want to resign? Anthony Davis? I mean, uh, they just gave up most of their young core in order to get a d.
00:08:13
They're banking on being able to re sign him next summer.
00:08:16
If a D says, Hey, I really enjoyed playing with DeMarcus cousins.
00:08:19
I'd like to play with him again, just like we did with the New Orleans Pelicans.
00:08:23
And the Lakers believe that cousins can recover from this injury.
00:08:26
Absolutely.
00:08:27
They'll consider signing him again, operating under the assumption it's past his legal issue here.
00:08:32
But if E.
00:08:33
D is swayed in any way by having to Marcus Cousins on the roster, then it would make a heck of a lot of sense for the Lakers to go ahead and do that and keep him around, even if it's just to give you a better shot at retaining Anthony Davis.
00:08:47
Okay, if Edie says I want to play with the markets cousins.
00:08:51
I would fully expect the Lakers to make that happen, or at least, but for their best effort to make that come true.
00:08:58
So a lot of factors to consider here.
00:09:00
A lot of people are looking at this as, Oh, hey, DeMarcus Cousins is never gonna put on a Lakers jersey.
00:09:05
Not so fast.
00:09:06
There are some reasons to believe that it could actually happen.
00:09:09
He could still come back next year.
00:09:11
It's not totally out of the question.
00:09:14
All right, guys, tomorrow we'll be back with our next video as we get closer and closer to training camp talking about each and every Lakers player can't wait. Super excited.
00:09:23
We're almost there.
00:09:24
The light at the end of the tunnel by guys before we get out of here.
00:09:28
Make sure you go follow us on social media and Lakers Nation on Twitter and Facebook at Lakers Nation official on Instagram.
00:09:34
And, of course, hit that subscribe button on the Lakers nation YouTube channels.
00:09:38
You get notified every time we have new video is coming out.
00:09:41
My name's Trevor Lane.
00:09:42
If you want to toss me a follow on Twitter, you can follow me at Trevor Underscore Lane or on Instagram at Trevor Lane and be a till next time see him
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DeMarcus Cousins Future With Lakers In Our Season Preview
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Transcript hideup
00:00:07
Hello, Lakers Nation.
00:00:08
My name is Trevor Lane, senior writer for lakers nation dot com.
00:00:11
And today we get to kick off the Lakers nation previews.
00:00:16
We're gonna be taking a look at each player leading up to the start of the Lakers training camp. Super excited.
00:00:22
Can't wait to dive in.
00:00:23
And today, well, we start kind of on a sad note, I guess we start with the Marcus Cousins Boogie.
00:00:29
The guy that we thought was going to be the X factor for the Lakers this season, Of course, tears.
00:00:34
His A c l isn't gonna happen.
00:00:36
Probably not going to play it all this season.
00:00:37
But you know what? Don't write him off just yet.
00:00:40
I'm gonna get into why, But before we dive into everything, okay, we got to talk about the elephant in the room.
00:00:47
Obviously, he's got the legal issues going on, right? The alleged threats that he made it to his ex.
00:00:53
We've all heard the recording at this point.
00:00:56
Look, that's that's messy, messy stuff, and perhaps the Lakers decide that they just don't want to get involved with this.
00:01:02
It's possible the Lakers just completely cut ties.
00:01:05
Would DeMarcus cousins and say no, we're not dealing with this.
00:01:08
But with this show moving forward, we're gonna assume that somehow they find a way around that that somehow things get get resolved and cousins is able to move forward.
00:01:19
Okay? And again, I'm not.
00:01:20
I'm no legal expert or anything like that.
00:01:22
So I can't say exactly what might happen or anything like that.
00:01:25
But let's assume for the moment that they do find a way to resolve that issue.
00:01:30
And the Lakers decided to move past it and continue their relationship with DeMarcus cousins.
00:01:34
That's a big hurled to clear.
00:01:36
Don't get me wrong.
00:01:37
I'm not saying it's likely or anything like that.
00:01:39
But let's move forward.
00:01:40
Assuming that that's what does take place, because I think if that happens, you can make a real argument for DeMarcus cousins, maintaining a relationship with the Lakers and perhaps coming back to the Lakers next season, which I probably wouldn't have been saying if he had stayed healthy.
00:01:56
And I'm gonna get into that in just a moment.
00:01:59
But first so cousins injury a tourney C l most likely he's out for the season.
00:02:03
Okay, there's a slim chance, maybe come back for the very, very end of the season.
00:02:08
But again by that point, depending on where the Lakers are at, they may not want to try to even integrate DeMarcus cousins into their lineup.
00:02:15
At that stage, it may just be better to let him let him.
00:02:18
He'll let him be 100% let him have a full off season, and then he contact in the next season, assuming he still wants to play basketball.
00:02:24
This is a guy who's been besieged by injuries.
00:02:27
I mean, we've got the Tauron Achilles and then the quad.
00:02:30
They're in the playoffs last year and now Susie, it's healthy and he's looking good.
00:02:34
He's looking trim and fit and ready to go torn a c L unfortunate stuff.
00:02:39
And this is a guy who put up 16.
00:02:41
3 points, 8.
00:02:42
2 boards, 3.
00:02:43
6 assists, 1.
00:02:44
3 steals, 1.
00:02:45
5 blocks.
00:02:46
Are you kidding me? He stuffed the stat sheet for the Golden State Warriors last season, and he didn't look right if you watch the games.
00:02:53
He did not look right.
00:02:54
He didn't look like the DaMarcus cousins of old.
00:02:56
He looked a step slow.
00:02:58
He looked like he didn't have lift.
00:02:59
Those were all issues and concerns, and yet he still got the job done.
00:03:04
This guy's a very, very talented basketball player, and it's It's certainly unfortunate that now he is unable to play due to this injury reason that he would have been tremendous with Lakers this season.
00:03:14
But as I said, I think it might be more likely that we see DeMarcus cousins in the Lakers uniform next season again.
00:03:23
If they can get past the let the the legal issue because of this injury, see the way we're approaching this.
00:03:30
Before it was eight DeMarcus cousins shows up this season, and in 2019 2020 he shows out he does his thing, and he puts up even numbers similar to what he did with Gold State. That would be fine.
00:03:40
He's probably gone in free agency because the most the Lakers would have been able to offer next summer would have been there mid level exception of just over $9 million.
00:03:48
Well, assuming cousins proves himself to be the player we know he can be and he had stayed healthy, somebody would have given him more than that.
00:03:56
Certainly that offer would have been there for him.
00:03:58
So most likely the Lakers wouldn't be able to come close to it, and Cousins would have gone somewhere else.
00:04:03
Now, though, it's hard to imagine cousins getting anything more than the mid level exception.
00:04:08
Assuming he still wants to play basketball and he's able to get himself back into shape, he's gonna need to prove it, prove that he can stay healthy.
00:04:15
And so you could see the Lakers potentially taking a gamble on him on at a a full veteran minimum contract, a veteran minimum deal.
00:04:23
The nice thing about that is it doesn't count against you in terms of cap space.
00:04:27
Not that the Lakers were gonna have cap space assuming knock on wood that they re sign Anthony Davis.
00:04:32
They will be capped out, but it means they won't have to dip into their mid level exception if they can keep him around on a veteran minimum deal again.
00:04:40
Will they actually want to keep him around? Who knows? Look, maybe Dwight Howard and Javale McGee become the amazing tandem that that we're all kind of hoping they can be, and they decided to just roll with those two guys moving forward and that's it.
00:04:53
And the story, and they're not gonna gonna bring back to Marcus Cousins.
00:04:56
That's certainly possible.
00:04:57
But the talent is here for cousins, and the Fit is their cousins.
00:05:01
Playing alongside Anthony Davis.
00:05:03
He gives you the floor spacing that 80 needs.
00:05:06
Plus, he's got the size to bang down low.
00:05:08
And that's something that is important to Anthony Davis because he doesn't want his body to take the pounding of playing against fives.
00:05:14
All season long, we've heard it time and time again, he's gonna be playing power forward.
00:05:18
It's part of why the Lakers had to go sign Dwight Howard after Cousins got hurt.
00:05:22
They needed big bodies, so cousins would be a nice fit if he can get healthy.
00:05:27
If he can come back 100% healthy now, the Lakers did apply for an injury exception.
00:05:33
That's only gonna be about 1.
00:05:34
75 million.
00:05:36
Not a whole heck of lot.
00:05:37
Should they trade cousins? Should they wave him before before they use that money, that money would go away, But again, that's not a lot of cash.
00:05:44
They're not gonna be able to do much with it.
00:05:46
Maybe they can pick up somebody somewhere around the middle of the season.
00:05:49
If somebody gets cut from another team, perhaps that's possible.
00:05:53
But again, most likely that money is going to go unused.
00:05:57
They could still wave DeMarcus cousins, though.
00:05:59
There is a riel avenue here for waving to Marcus Husbands.
00:06:03
And that's if somebody else pops up like, let's say, I don't know the guy that I talked about on the last video, Andre Iguodala.
00:06:10
Let's say the Memphis Grizzlies finally come to their senses and they reach a buyout with a D herbicide with a I, and they go ahead and buy him out.
00:06:20
Then maybe the Lakers need a roster spot right now.
00:06:22
They have 15 guaranteed con contracts with cousins still sitting on their roster.
00:06:27
They may need that roster spot to bring in somebody like an Iguodala, and then they cut to Marcus Cousins.
00:06:32
Now I caution everybody, though.
00:06:34
If they cut to Marcus Cousins, you see that news come down.
00:06:37
That does not mean that they're severing ties with him.
00:06:40
If something specifically says that they're severing ties because of the legal issues or whatever, then that's a different story.
00:06:47
But just cutting him doesn't mean that he's not part of the future because again operating under the under the assumption that he gets a veteran minimum deal next summer, it doesn't really matter if he has years of service with the Lakers or anything like that.
00:07:00
We're not worried about his bird rights or anything of that nature.
00:07:04
So in that case, cutting to Marcus Cousins doesn't necessarily mean he wouldn't come back next summer.
00:07:10
In fact, they could still have him training at the Lakers facility and rehabbing at the facility.
00:07:14
That's that's something that the N V.
00:07:16
A would most likely allow them to do.
00:07:18
So just because they cut him to free up a roster spot doesn't necessarily mean his time with the Lakers is totally done, or that he won't come back next summer.
00:07:26
In fact, it's still very much a possibility.
00:07:29
UH, one other angle that we need to talk about regarding DeMarcus cousins and potentially coming back.
00:07:35
Anthony Davis.
00:07:36
Anthony Davis himself.
00:07:37
Yes, but this is what Anthony Davis said way back in November of 2018 feels like a lifetime ago.
00:07:44
But November 2018 Anthony Davis told ESPN Cousins will be a free agent next year, hopefully down the line, we can reconnect way back.
00:07:54
Way back then.
00:07:55
He was already looking forward to DeMarcus cousins, being a free agent the following summer and potentially teaming up with him.
00:08:02
Anthony Davis wants to you play with the Marcus Cousins.
00:08:05
Why is that relevant with Lakers? Want to resign? Anthony Davis? I mean, uh, they just gave up most of their young core in order to get a d.
00:08:13
They're banking on being able to re sign him next summer.
00:08:16
If a D says, Hey, I really enjoyed playing with DeMarcus cousins.
00:08:19
I'd like to play with him again, just like we did with the New Orleans Pelicans.
00:08:23
And the Lakers believe that cousins can recover from this injury.
00:08:26
Absolutely.
00:08:27
They'll consider signing him again, operating under the assumption it's past his legal issue here.
00:08:32
But if E.
00:08:33
D is swayed in any way by having to Marcus Cousins on the roster, then it would make a heck of a lot of sense for the Lakers to go ahead and do that and keep him around, even if it's just to give you a better shot at retaining Anthony Davis.
00:08:47
Okay, if Edie says I want to play with the markets cousins.
00:08:51
I would fully expect the Lakers to make that happen, or at least, but for their best effort to make that come true.
00:08:58
So a lot of factors to consider here.
00:09:00
A lot of people are looking at this as, Oh, hey, DeMarcus Cousins is never gonna put on a Lakers jersey.
00:09:05
Not so fast.
00:09:06
There are some reasons to believe that it could actually happen.
00:09:09
He could still come back next year.
00:09:11
It's not totally out of the question.
00:09:14
All right, guys, tomorrow we'll be back with our next video as we get closer and closer to training camp talking about each and every Lakers player can't wait. Super excited.
00:09:23
We're almost there.
00:09:24
The light at the end of the tunnel by guys before we get out of here.
00:09:28
Make sure you go follow us on social media and Lakers Nation on Twitter and Facebook at Lakers Nation official on Instagram.
00:09:34
And, of course, hit that subscribe button on the Lakers nation YouTube channels.
00:09:38
You get notified every time we have new video is coming out.
00:09:41
My name's Trevor Lane.
00:09:42
If you want to toss me a follow on Twitter, you can follow me at Trevor Underscore Lane or on Instagram at Trevor Lane and be a till next time see him
