DeMarcus Cousins’ fantasy basketball stock, already ridiculously high, just exploded.
Rookie Willie Cauley-Stein, whom the Sacramento Kings have often tried to play beside Cousins, is expected to miss a huge chunk of time after suffering a right index injury in Thursday night’s loss to the Boston Celtics.
Marc J. Spears came bearing the bittersweet news:
Kings say center Willie Cauley-Stein sustained an open dislocation of his right index finger versus Boston tonight and is four to six weeks.
— Marc J. Spears (@SpearsNBAYahoo) December 4, 2015
This is clearly bitter because injuries are never cool. The Kings, despite their best efforts to prove otherwise, are still rebuilding, and Cauley-Stein is supposed to be a huge part of that rebuild. We think. It’s tough to tell with the Kings. Cauley-Stein plays the same position as Cousins, who is playing a ton of power forward this season.
Because, Kings.
Still, why else would the front office burn through a top-six pick for Cauley-Stein? They obviously have some sort of prominent plan for him, be it as a franchise cornerstone or future trade asset. Whatever their hope, they need Cauley-Stein to be on the floor, playing and developing, for the vision in question to be actualized.
At the same time, while Cauley-Stein only ranks ninth on the team in total minutes, his absence means more minutes at the 5 for Cousins. And with Cousins spending more time at the five, that means more small-ball lineups for the Kings.
And more small-ball lineups for the Kings is a good thing.
We have arrived at the sweet portion of Cauley-Stein’s absence.
No, the Kings haven’t liberally experimented with such combinations this season, so the statistical evidence supporting this stance is thin, if it exists at all. And the Kings’ most-used lineup—Cauley-Stein, Cousins, Rudy Gay, Ben McLemore and Rajon Rondo—features two bigs and, according to NBA.com, is outscoring opponents by a mind-melting 32.8 points per 100 possessions.
Cousins’ emergence as a serviceable three-point shooter, however, helps mask a ton of the Kings’ spacing issues. The league is trending not only the direction of stretch 4s, but stretch 5s. Right now, the Kings should be compelled to throw out a lineup of Cousins, Gay, McLeMore, Rondo and any one of Marco Belinelli, Omri Casspi or even Darren Collision.
Mixing and matching those sweet-shooting wings with Rondo’s dribble penetration and Cousins’ all-everything arsenal will make for an offensive juggernaut.
And as a team that’s still on the outside looking in at those who rank in the top 10 of offensive efficiency, per NBA.com, a collective point-piling dynamo is something the Kings should be very interested in deploying.
