Speculation: DeMarcus Cousins?

[AHF]

Cousins was actually more efficient scoring on his shots than Jefferson last season which is incredible given how much low hanging fruit there is for Cousins to improve (i.e., significant problem with shot selection). The reason for this is that Cousins gets to the line twice as often as Jefferson.

Also, Cousins just finished his age 22 season while Jefferson finished his age 28 season.

Cousins is more of a wildcard in terms of his maturity, though. He needs a strong person he respects to rid him ala Calipari at Kentucky (where he was an absolute beast). Cousins is not yet a beast in the NBA and the favorable comparison on TS% to Jefferson speaks less about Cousins being great than Jefferson's impact being more muted than you might otherwise suspect.

[Admin]

I would love for us to acquire Cousins, but I'm not sure what we'd be able to offer the Kings to get him. Maybe after free agency starts we can offer Josh and 1 of the guys we take in the draft this year.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Cousins was actually more efficient scoring on his shots than Jefferson last season which is incredible given how much low hanging fruit there is for Cousins to improve (i.e., significant problem with shot selection). The reason for this is that Cousins gets to the line twice as often as Jefferson.

Also, Cousins just finished his age 22 season while Jefferson finished his age 28 season.

Cousins is more of a wildcard in terms of his maturity, though. He needs a strong person he respects to rid him ala Calipari at Kentucky (where he was an absolute beast). Cousins is not yet a beast in the NBA and the favorable comparison on TS% to Jefferson speaks less about Cousins being great than Jefferson's impact being more muted than you might otherwise suspect.

Points per play ( SynergySports )

Cousins - 0.88 . . ( ranked 260th )

Jefferson - 0.97 . . ( ranked 103rd )

Horford - 0.99 . . ( ranked 83rd )

The problem with citing how Total shot % ( or true shooting % ) shows "efficiency", is that it doesn't factor in turnovers.

Cousins has a 52.4 TS%

Jefferson has a 52.2 TS%

But one guy is going to turn the ball over almost 3 times as much as the other guy. So who is really the more efficient offensive player?

On a per 36 minute basis, Cousins is going to shoot the ball about 16 times, get to the line about 3.5 times, and turn it over 3.5 times . . . and score 20 points in the process. So he's going to "possess the ball about 23 times to score 20 points.

20/23 = 0.869 points per possession

On a per 36 minute basis, Jefferson is going to shoot the ball 17 times, get to the line 1.5 times, and turn the ball over 1.5 times . . and score. So he's going to "possess" the ball about 20 times to score 19 points.

19/20 = 0.95 points per possession

I know you are a strong believer in total shot percentage, but it doesn't tell a true story about efficiency, because it doesn't factor in turnovers. Even the very popular "points per shot" doesn't factor in turnovers. But when you talk about points per possession, you really get to see who can get points every time they try to score.

If Demarcus has to touch the ball 3 more times just to get about the same number of points as Jefferson, there's no way he's more "efficient".

[TheNorthCydeRises]

North, stop the spin. This is just nonsensical. You've established that the Kings were a middle pack shooting team compared to the Hawks and Jazz and I've established that their passers are piss poor (hint: they are supposedly passing to more than just Cousins and if they are a good shooting team then why is it they had only 1 player crack a pedestrian 20% assist rate?) Cousins was scoring on 64% on only 49% assisted baskets for a greater true shooting % than Jefferson who was assisted more so how is it he's getting blamed for his guards being ass? If he's doing that on less support how can anyone willfully argue that he did worse on baskets actually fed to him???

There's no spin.

The Kings were a whopping .003 percentage worse than the Jazz in 3 point percentage, who also took 103 less threes than the Kings.

Cousins shoots 64% on 49% assisted baskets. Jefferson shoots 72% on 55% assisted.

Cousins has a TS% of .524 . . . Jefferson a TS% of .522

But nobody wants to discuss the huge elephant in the room about Cousins, which is his turnovers. Nobody wants to discuss that it takes Cousins almost a full 3 more possessions to score 20 points, than it does to take Jefferson to score 19. Jefferson is also a superior post-up scorer, perimeter shooter, and pick and roll player. The stats CLEARLY show this.

But I'm the one in "spin mode"? LOL

You guys are citing 2 stats to validate your point. I've cited a plethora of stats to flat out disprove your claim that Cousins is better offensively or more efficient.

But I'm the one in "spin mode"?

LOL

This is Demarcus in a nutshell

And look how his coach and Tyreke respond to it after the game

So in 3 years, Demarcus supposedly got Paul Westphal fired, and the Kings fire Keith Smart right after Memorial Day. And Smart was a coach who was supposedly getting through to Demarcus. Poor Keith.

That dude is nothing more than the center version of Josh Smith, with better flashes of talent on offense, but an even more volatile personality that can be cancerous.

[MaceCase]

No, it is the absolute definition of spin. Now you've spun off to harp on turnovers and attitude while not addressing the point that I made.

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Cousins is:

1) Counted on to create more of his offense considering that he's assisted on less of his made baskets. (fact)

2) Played on a team that had only one, that's right one, player that cracks a greater than 20% assist percentage. (fact)

Is it really hard to understand the correlation between passing and efficiency?

or

Creating your own and your team's offense (turnovers are factored into possessions but not assists?) and efficiency?

But no, let's use the argument that Cousins is actually bumbling EVERY pass his great guards who can only pass to him and only him are feeding him. This is the sole reason why he has only 1 guard on his team that can top the passing mark of a good shooting guard while still being below the league average assist rate of PGs.

I'm sorry, that is a rather large discrepancy that you need to overcome between the quality of the Utah guards and Sacramento guards. Unless you want to pretend that Cousins turns the ball over on 95% of all passes to him there's no way to reconcile the greater difference in assist percentage and rates amongst both teams' players compared to the difference in scoring efficiency between Jefferson and Cousins.

So beyond that, we'll overlook the difference of 6 years between the players or that Cousins has already bested career highs in passing and rebounding set by Jefferson while already managing to be a similarly efficient scorer on lesser passing support. One has truly made a great argument as to why one should definitely be a top free agent target while the other shoud be avoided.

[Admin]

No, it is the absolute definition of spin. Now you've spun off to harp on turnovers and attitude while not addressing the point that I made.

Let

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Clearly

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You

That's actually a lot less clear than a standard horizontal inline sentence. Unless you're Asian and then in that case it might be more clear.

[MaceCase]

That's actually a lot less clear than a standard horizontal inline sentence. Unless you're Asian and then in that case it might be more clear.

Nonsense, they'd be wondering why their eyes have to go over 2/3rds of an empty page before they saw the first word.

[EazyRoc]

One man's pride will keep this thread alive.