As a teenager, I used to love playing the Association/MyLeague mode in NBA 2K. You would get to pretend to be a general manager and you would try to build a championship contender with whatever team you chose in the game. And I forgot what year, but either in NBA 2K15 or NBA 2K16, once you built a good team, great players would voluntarily take pay cuts to join your team. Therefore, once you got a couple stars, you were basically guaranteed to get 84 overall Carmelo Anthony for the mid-level exception of like five million. Obviously, that was unrealistic. But apparently, the Golden State Warriors did not get the memo, instead signing DeMarcus Cousins in the offseason for less than what the Celtics paid Aron Baynes.
Over the last two years with the Kevin Durant iteration of the Warriors, their weakness had always been the center position; then they added one of the best centers in the league in Cousins. At the point, if you use the Warriors in a 2K pickup game, you should seriously question your manhood or womanhood.
Last Friday, on January 18, 2019, DeMarcus Cousins made his season debut, returning from a torn Achilles suffered last season when he was a member of the New Orleans Pelicans. In 15 minutes, he scored 14 points on 5/11 shooting with 3 three-pointers, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists. He is still rounding into form, as evidenced by his six fouls resulting in an early disqualification, but if those fifteen minutes were any indication, the Warriors may not have any holes left.
Keep in mind that the last two seasons, the Warriors won back to back titles with Zaza Pachulia and Jordan Bell at center. Neither were starter quality players and undoubtedly had holes in their game that opponents could attack. But again, the Warriors still took home the championship both years, losing a grand total of one Finals game over the course of the last two years.
Even if DeMarcus Cousins never regains his preinjury explosiveness, his skills alone would already make him a huge upgrade over the players the Warriors had been cycling in and out of the center spot. In the Clippers, Cousins showed fans the three point shot that will allow the Warriors to go five out making them completely unstoppable. Now, they have five three point shooters, which includes two of the best of all time in Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, and arguably the best scorer in the game in Kevin Durant. Defenders will have to play up on them, and now with Cousins drawing out his man, paint points will come so easily for Golden State. And of course, if Cousins’s man stays in, he showed us that he will make them pay. In addition to the long range jump shot, Cousins is also one of the best passing big men in the league, which he showcased with his dish from the post to a cutting Steph Curry. The Warriors were already one of the best teams in the league at moving the ball and assisting on their points, but Cousins’s passing ability at the center position just makes them all the more unfair.
And if he shows us a rejuvenated post game to go along with his shooting and passing, that’s it. The Warriors could basically rest one of their core guys in the playoffs every game and still be unstoppable. We have reached the point in this Warriors dynasty where you can’t gameplan to beat the Warriors anymore. If any team is able to knock off the Warriors, it is luck. If someone can do it four times in a playoff series, they deserve a Nobel Prize. Seriously, this team will be so good in real life and in video game that if you lose with them in 2K, you should just set the controller down for good.
FanTake Basketball 