DeMarcus Cousins

[Allan Houston]

Current Rating: 78

Cousins is undeniably great, but he's not 78 great.  I think he's overrated bc people don't realize there's a disconnect between talent and productivity. Cousins is productive, but not at a level that matches his talent. Skilled big men just aren't as valuable in today's NBA. Lesser guys like Kanter are becoming role players.  It's not just disfunction in SAC that leads to that, as we saw with the Olympic team. DeAndre, a guy who can't even make a set shot, turned out to be a much more valuable center.

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[Justin Timberlake]

There isn't much Boogie doesn't do. For overall ratings, that's a big reason for his rating. He's even extended his game to the 3PT range.

Not disagreeing with your suggestion, but not entirely sure of your reasoning for his decrease.

[Allan Houston]

That's part of my point. Boogie can do everything, but he's not 78 great at the things which make a center particularly valuable, namely rim protection and efficiency. And there are other examples of similar scenarios. Melo is probably the most complete scorer in the league, but he's certainly not the most productive scorer. Rafer Alston probably had the most moves when it came to ball handling. You wouldn't want him to be your ball handler. Talent and productivity are not necessarily 1-to-1, because players, even the elite ones, need to play a role that demands certain skills and doesn't demand others.

[Steve Jobs]

No, this is just silly. Boogie is absolutely a 75+ player and just put up his best year yet. You can argue all you want about whether or not his stats should lead to a high rating, but until there is definitive proof that with a good coach, decent supporting cast, and consistency with those things, Boogie is still not capable of leading a team to wins... There is no argument to be made that his rating shouldn't reflect his ability to do everything at a good-to-elite level.

[Allan Houston]

So since we don't have any empirical evidence of him with a good coach, we should assume he'd be a top 5 guy? What evidence is there for that assumption? I think we should be agnostic to how he'd be under a good coach, since we've never seen it (and that's ignoring him under a coaching staff of coach K, Boeheim, Thibs, and D'Antoni [was he still on the staff?] where he was benched for a less skilled but more valuable DeAndre)

The evidence we have is he's not a 78 under a dysfunctional organization, but shows skills that other people don't possess that may believe that. I think we should lean conservative and follow the empirical rather than analytic evidence.

Also, I think my argument is perfectly valid. If Cousins is your starting center, you should be very happy, but understand that you're going to lack an elite rim protector and finisher in the position where those skills are supremely inportant.

[billy]

Sept 4, 2016 23:33:12 GMT -5 Allan Houston said:

So since we don't have any empirical evidence of him with a good coach, we should assume he'd be a top 5 guy? What evidence is there for that assumption? I think we should be agnostic to how he'd be under a good coach, since we've never seen it (and that's ignoring him under a coaching staff of coach K, Boeheim, Thibs, and D'Antoni [was he still on the staff?] where he was benched for a less skilled but more valuable DeAndre)

The evidence we have is he's not a 78 under a dysfunctional organization, but shows skills that other people don't possess that may believe that. I think we should lean conservative and follow the empirical rather than analytic evidence.

Also, I think my argument is perfectly valid. If Cousins is your starting center, you should be very happy, but understand that you're going to lack an elite rim protector and finisher in the position where those skills are supremely inportant.

We do have some evidence of him with a good coach. He & wall led by Calipari couldn't even beat a bunch of 3 star recruits in the Elite Eight XD