That's going to be fun to defend.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/18722737/sacramento-kings-agree-deal-demarcus-cousins-new-orleans-pelicans

Man that is scary as hell

I don't think it will mean much without some outside shooting, but they are going to absolutely punish smaller teams.

Oppoaing teams can only hope that Boogie takes up too much space down low and AD spends all his time away from the rim.

This trade will either save or kill the Pelicans' franchise. Calipari to the Pelicans next season?

Send that baby from one poorly run cancerous franchise to another. I predict that this won't end well.

I don't think NO is as poorly run as a Sacramento.

I think they've had horrible luck with injuries. Too bad they don't have Eric Gordon now.

Their frontline is Cousins, Brow, and a whole lot of former Southwest Division players.

Asik, Motiejunas, T Jones, Cunningham, and Ajinica all played in the SW.



Actually, in looking at that roster, they have to have another trade going on here pretty soon. They have 8 PF/C with only 7 roster spots for PG, SG, or SF. I would think even more than Terrence Jones.

What was SAC smoking? Trading Cousins for Buddy freakin' Hield and the 10th pick in the draft? That is stupid. If that is the best they could do then they should have kept Cousins.

PatAg said:

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Why is everyone assuming that Boogie's troubles are just going to disappear? Dude is very talented, but I'll believe he can change when I see it.

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Cousins is definitely a question mark in the locker room, at least in Sacramento. He seems to mesh pretty well with the national team and during All-Star weekends (I know, not exactly the same). But still, it isn't like Sacramento is a top notch organization. 6 different head coaches since he was drafted. Will be interesting.

At least if they can get the 8 seed, the GSW series becomes more interesting.

I don't think the Pelicans can win a game, but at least it is better than any other current 1 v 8 possibility.

jeffdjohnson said:

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What was SAC smoking? Trading Cousins for Buddy freakin' Hield and the 10th pick in the draft? That is stupid. If that is the best they could do then they should have kept Cousins.

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That's what I'm saying. I read that they were ready to put the same package together to get Jahlil Okafor. Instead they used the same crumbs to get the best offensive big in the league. Possibly best big in the league overall.

Also interesting is the Lakers turned it down because they didn't want to include Brandon Ingram who, from what I've seen so far, is trash.

Isn't it the pelicans pick? So if the pelicans make the playoffs, it could be buddy and somewhere around the 16th pick for boogie.

I wonder how much merchandise Cousins sells compared to other top players. They may also want to transition to a guard-oriented offense and, given that, think their other bigs can replace enough of the scoring load.

It makes less sense to me from the Pels perspective, actually, but they also have the worst talent:results ratio in the league.

SAC is about to transition to a no talent oriented offense.

Reading about this trade I think there is some stealth tanking involved. Apparently SAC owes Chicago their first round pick which is top 10 protected. Clearly part of this move is to ensure they keep the pick.

Another interesting sub-plot is that the Lakers wouldn't give up Brandon Ingram for Cousins. If the Lakers don't finish bottom 3 then they lose their pick to Philadelphia. I can't help but wonder if winning too many games down the stretch is part of the reason they didn't trade for Cousins.

Moral of the story, don't trade future picks.

If you're going to tank, your good players get "injured", you don't trade them away. But your comment does bring Hanlon's Razor to mind. I was trying to think of a smart reason for a superficially dumb move, but that may not be the right way to guess what Sacramento is doing.

jeffdjohnson said:

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SAC is about to transition to a no talent oriented offense.

Reading about this trade I think there is some stealth tanking involved. Apparently SAC owes Chicago their first round pick which is top 10 protected. Clearly part of this move is to ensure they keep the pick.

Another interesting sub-plot is that the Lakers wouldn't give up Brandon Ingram for Cousins. If the Lakers don't finish bottom 3 then they lose their pick to Philadelphia. I can't help but wonder if winning too many games down the stretch is part of the reason they didn't trade for Cousins.

Moral of the story, don't trade future picks.

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Both of these reasons should have played a part and likely did. But that is probably giving Sacramento too much credit. I think they may just actually love BUDDY, which is crazy.

Or they didn't have a strategy for when cousins was a free agent. I'm not sure what I would want....

What would be worse:
Losing Cousins for nothing as a free agent
-or-
Lock him up for 7 years/$200mm?

Not sure I would want 7 more years of Cousins.

I can't believe teams like the Wizards or Celtics couldn't put something better together.

Cousins is a slug and a cancer... And I think teams figured that out. He might work in a top shelf organization with an incredible staff and GM (think San Antonio or Golden State). NOLA though? I don't see it working. At Kentucky it was because he was immature. At Sacto it's been his coaches then generally just bad organization. At this point teams have generally wised up to him being a ******** and it wouldn't surprise me If the Pelicans offer was the best and certainly think the market for him was way smaller than what was perceived publicly. He seems to still get a pass for a lot of his **** from the media and fans and I think much of that is because of his nickname.

Question: If Cousins signs as a free agent elsewhere, will this be considered a bad trade for the Pelicans?

Iowaggie said:

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Or they didn't have a strategy for when cousins was a free agent. I'm not sure what I would want....

What would be worse:
Losing Cousins for nothing as a free agent
-or-
Lock him up for 7 years/$200mm?

Not sure I would want 7 more years of Cousins.

I can't believe teams like the Wizards or Celtics couldn't put something better together.

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His next contract will be something like 5 years/200+ million.

This trade was obviously better than losing Cousins for nothing. And it may even be better than keeping him and remaining on a 28 win path for years to come. But it sounds like they could have picked a better trade to make.

Your question about if Cousins signs elsewhere really highlights how bad this trade is. Honestly, even if he does sign somewhere else when he's a free agent, it's hard to call this an awful trade for the Pelicans.

Iowaggie said:

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Question: If Cousins signs as a free agent elsewhere, will this be considered a bad trade for the Pelicans?

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Probably. Depends on what we'd get for him.

Can't believe the Kings agreed to that trade. Dell Demps probably still can't believe it. We got away with robbery. It might blow up in the Pels' face, but we had to take a risk at some point or AD was gonna walk and we'd be back to square one.

Omri Casspi also part of the deal and Matt Barnes was also waived.

ATM9000 said:

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Cousins is a slug and a cancer... And I think teams figured that out. He might work in a top shelf organization with an incredible staff and GM (think San Antonio or Golden State). NOLA though? I don't see it working. At Kentucky it was because he was immature. At Sacto it's been his coaches then generally just bad organization. At this point teams have generally wised up to him being a ******** and it wouldn't surprise me If the Pelicans offer was the best and certainly think the market for him was way smaller than what was perceived publicly. He seems to still get a pass for a lot of his **** from the media and fans and I think much of that is because of his nickname.

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You live in the real world? Lot of *******s who are impossible to work with have a few causes they care about... Maybe it makes them less along an *******... But they are still an ******* nonetheless.

Thoughts and prayers to Robert Williams' pro career if the Kings were to draft him.

Probably end up with the Browns somehow.

Mavs waxed dat ass on Saturday.

Lots of people here in this thread wondering why SAC made that trade.. not one person has brought up the idea that maybe they no longer wanted to deal with a super jerk

Ulrich said:

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C Loves L said:

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Lots of people here in this thread wondering why SAC made that trade.. not one person has brought up the idea that maybe they no longer wanted to deal with a super jerk

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On this thread, Cousins has been referred to as troubled, a baby, a locker room question mark, an ass****, a slug, and a cancer. Pretty much everyone (including the linked article) directly or indirectly brought this up as a factor in the trade.

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For some reason the above exchange reminds me of this Fletch interchange

Dr. Joseph Dolan: You know, it's a shame about Ed.
Fletch: Oh, it was. Yeah, it was really a shame. To go so suddenly like that.
Dr. Joseph Dolan: He was dying for years.
Fletch: Sure, but... the end was very... very sudden.
Dr. Joseph Dolan: He was in intensive care for eight weeks.
Fletch: Yeah, but I mean the very end, when he actually died. That was extremely sudden.