DeMarcus Cousins received his fair share of criticism when, coming off a dominant season, he opted to join the defending champion Golden State Warriors on a one-year mid-level exception contract worth $5.3 million.
Yet that criticism was always a bit displaced. Cousins tore his Achilles in January 2018, and wasn’t going to be able to play at the start of the season. When he debuted for the Warriors on Friday, it had been nearly an entire year since he’d last played a game.
Teams weren’t eager to offer a contract to a player who would miss half a year, even if that player was coming off of a season in which he averaged 25.