DeMarcus ‘Boogie’ Cousins’ career is often treated as a “what if” by NBA fans. The big man, while very dominant, has an unlucky history with injuries, and that’s exactly what prevented him from reaching his full potential as an all-star. The most significant injury he suffered was a torn Achilles in 2018 when he was playing for the New Orleans Pelicans.
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As a guest on Draymond Green’s podcast, Boogie opened up about how he managed to recover from what is considered a career-ending injury.
The former All-Star also provided an insider’s look at what playing on that Warriors team was like. While Boogie only spent a season with them, he described his time as difficult because of how hard it was to figure out his place in a team with 4 other Hall of Famers.
In 2018, Boogie signed with the Warriors and even though it was for a one-year tenure, he was part of the franchise when the dynasty was at its peak. On the show, he was reminded by Draymond Green that when he came back from the Achilles injury, he dunked on Kyle Kuzma which made Green realize that he was witnessing prime Boogie.
When asked what the significance of that dunk regarding his comeback and his place in the team was, he said, “I would say it was a hurdle I had to jump over. It was a lot for me even coming back, learning the system and it’s like, that offense, people think it’s just so free flowing, but it takes a lot of IQ to play in that and your IQ never turns off. It’s not just an athletic type system”
As someone who has played in that system for over a decade and has been very successful, Green couldn’t agree more. Cousins said that the Warriors don’t play the physical game as much as some of the other teams because their strength comes from the offense that plays the high IQ game. However, his biggest challenge was fitting in with the team.
When Cousins joined the Dubs, they were coming off back-to-back titles, and their chemistry was at an all-time high. With their core of Curry, Thompson, Green and Kevin Durant already on each other’s wavelength, Boogie had to figure out how to find his footing with the rest of the squad.
He had to understand how to operate around those individuals. He said, “Learning how to play off the tendencies of Steph, the tendencies of Klay, and ultimately K, at the time and then even you because we did a lot of similar things.”
Although he stated that his time with the Warriors was difficult as he wasn’t able to figure out his role in time, Boogie thanked Green and the rest of his teammates for being patient with him and welcoming him with open arms.
