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DeMarcus Cousins is set to close a one-year deal with the Houston Rockets, according to Athlete’s Shams Charania. Cousins will receive the minimum on an unsecured deal to play for a Houston team currently in line to pay luxury tax for the first time under Tilman Fertitta. He missed the entire 2019-20 season after an ACL tear, which came after injuries to his quad and Achilles during his previous stints with the Golden State Warriors and New Orleans Pelicans, respectively.
The move appears to mark the end of Houston’s micro-ball experience. Last season, the Rockets gave up center position altogether and relied on Robert Covington and PJ Tucker as their rim protectors. They changed everything defensively and set the NBA record for most a team’s 3-point-per-game attempts.
They stepped away from that strategy by trading Covington for the Portland Trail Blazers last week and then acquiring former Detroit Pistons big man Christian Wood as part of a signing and trade. Now they also added Cousins. The logic is quite simple. The Rockets are trying to reclaim some of the advantages of the smaller ball, but with bigger players. Wood and Cousins showed unusual shooting skills for their size. Cousins is also a popular ferryman. A defender isn’t particularly strong either, but a modified Houston defensive scheme could protect them despite their limitations. These two aren’t going to switch to the perimeter like Covington once did.
For Houston, the move is a low risk, high reward home homerun. As far as we know, Cousins is no longer healthy enough to be a major contributor to a winning NBA team. But if he’s in perfect health and can return to anything resembling his old All-Star form, this deal is an absolute godsend for an absolutely desperate Houston team for depth. Cousins, meanwhile, joins a team with plenty of plan-making in the form of James Harden and Russell Westbrook. This should help him adjust to playing with less athleticism. Other than his time at Golden State, Cousins never had a star playmaker. Now he has two.
Harden and Westbrook are still pushing for trades. Cousins is no longer the kind of player who would set them back, but if the move works, his presence could ultimately help warm them up to the idea of a future in Houston. What if it doesn’t? He only does the minimum. No harm, no fault.
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