Why the Lakers won’t sign recently-released DeMarcus Cousins

The Los Angeles Lakers are looking to improve where they can this season after a disappointing start to the year. The team already traded Rajon Rondo to open up a roster spot and there are more potential moves on the horizon with interest in trading DeAndre Jordan and Kent Bazemore, even if a Bazemore trade does not make a lot of sense.

A new potential upgrade has hit the market in former Laker, (who never actually played for the team) DeMarcus Cousins. Cousins was shockingly let go by the Milwaukee Bucks, who do not boast a lot of center depth on the roster.

With Jordan playing so poorly and the potential to move on from him, Cousins might seem like a natural fit for the Lakers as they look to add reinforcements. While it will naturally be speculated because he is a former Laker, this is not a move that the team should be making.

Why the Los Angeles Lakers won’t sign DeMarcus Cousins:

The simple answer to this is that he is just not that good anymore. NBA fans have been holding out hope that Cousins could return at least closely to his old all-star form and he has not been able to do so since suffering injuries.

Every fan base talks itself into the ceiling of Cousins when their team signs him and quite frankly that ceiling is no longer there. He is a veteran that will bounce around from team to team and he just does not have that same juice.

The problem is that he cannot even take a lesser role like Carmelo Anthony and still be effective, at least not with the Lakers. If LA was going to bring him in then they would be hoping that he could add some of his floor-spacing shooting. This, in theory, would give the team an option to play bigger lineups without sacrificing the spacing.

With the Lakers recently committing to go small and play LeBron James and Anthony Davis at center, this could have been a nice addition to spice things up. However, the problem is that Cousins is no longer that guy. He is not someone who you can stick out there to help space the floor at the five.

Cousins is shooting 27.1% from three this season. While he has had some hot spurts, overall, he has not been a good shooter for multiple years now. Since his initial injury with the New Orleans Pelicans, Cousins is shooting just 30.9% from three.

It is not like he has much of a mid-range game, either. Cousins actually has not made a single shot from 10 feet to the three-point line this season. It is not even like he was a good presence near the rim with the Bucks, either. Over 40% of his shot attempts were from three in Milwaukee and he still shot that poorly.

Would he be better than Jordan? Marignally. However, he really does not add any new dynamic to the team and when it really comes down to it, he is not someone who is going to have much of a role at all in this rotation.

It would be a much better use of the team’s resources if they replaced Jordan with someone who could actually patch up some of the team’s weaknesses or play a role in the rotation in the playoffs. It does nothing to pay that extra luxury-tax money to get someone who fits just as poorly as Jordan and will be marginally better to the point where it won’t even make much of a difference.