Should the Celtics have traded for DeMarcus Cousins?
Debate the answer with Chad Finn and Boston sports fans at The Sports Q.
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I can’t believe the Kings traded Boogie Cousins for so little. If Danny Ainge didn’t hammer Vlade Divac’s phone with a counter he wasn’t doing his job, agreed? – Dan D.
I understand there are Celtics fans who are going to look at the underwhelming price the Pelicans gave up in Sunday night’s blockbuster trade for DeMarcus (or Boogie) Cousins and wonder why Ainge didn’t top the offer to bring him to the Celtics.
Per Adrian Wojnarowski, because it’s always per Woj, the Kings will send Cousins, the mercurial, super-talented 26-year-old center who is averaging more than 27 points and 10 rebounds per game this season, and Omri Casspi to the New Orleans Pelicans for rookie guard Buddy Hield, veterans Tyreke Evans and Langston Galloway, and first- and second-round picks in the 2017 NBA Draft.
It does not seem like much of a return for a player of Cousins’s talent and production. The Celtics certainly have the resources to top the Pelicans’ offer – a package of Amir Johnson, Jaylen Brown, the upcoming pick swap with the Nets (which could be the No. 1 overall pick in the draft) and another pick or two might have done it. They could have gotten Boogie, one of the top 10 players in the league, and they didn’t.
Which tells you one thing, and it’s not that Ainge wasn’t doing his job. It’s this: Though all of the Boogie-to-the-Celtics rumors through the years, he didn’t really want him after all.
Maybe there’s some mystery as to why, and maybe there is no mystery at all. Maybe Ainge thinks Cousins’s case of headcaseitis is incurable. Maybe he got negative intel from Isaiah Thomas regarding their time together in Sacramento. Maybe he likes his team as is, perhaps with a smaller tweak here or there, and sees a player in the college game that he thinks can be the next Celtics cornerstone without the headaches that come with Cousins. Or maybe he thinks there’s a real chance of acquiring Jimmy Butler, Paul George, or someone else who arrives with less Samsonite.
Ainge, who has done an extraordinary job rebuilding the Celtics after the end of the New Big Three era, knows what he wants and is never shy about trying to get it. He didn’t deal for Cousins. I say he deserves more than the benefit of the doubt with that decision. What say you? Let’s talk about it in the comments.
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