NBA news: DeMarcus Cousins 'the start' of Warriors' Anthony Davis chase
GETTY Anthony Davis is reportedly the Warriors' top target in 2019
Cousins, who is recovering from a torn Achilles suffered in January, penned a cut-price $5.3m deal with the Warriors that outraged fans across the league this week. If – the severity of Cousins’ injury makes his recovery anything but a formality – and when the 27-year-old returns to the court, the signing would mean the Warriors are capable of fielding a starting five consisting entirely of All-Star talent. The deal is anticipated to be a convenient short-team fix for both sides; the Warriors will get their hands on a scoring center for the first time in years while Cousins will not need to be rushed back from an injury that has ruined the career of almost every player who has suffered with it.
GETTY Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins were team-mates last year in New Orleans
But while the deal caused outrage across the league with fans, players and pundits alike expressing their disappointment that another superstar had taken a huge discount to join the league’s most dominant team in a decade, The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami claimed Cousins’ arrival was “only the beginning” of similarly terrifying moves the Warriors had planned for the future. “The larger thing is the anguish around the league, you talk about them not liking the competitive level now – wait until they try to do stuff next year, Zach…” Kawakami warned ESPN’s Zach Lowe on the Lowe Post podcast. “And you know what I’m talking about. This is just the beginning of something, I think, that they want to alter their team and they want a center. “[We] have been reporting this for a year. They do want a center, they want a young, scoring center. “They want a particular young, scoring center. It’s the one who was a team-mate of DeMarcus Cousins in New Orleans. This is a step towards that in their minds saying ‘the offence is great but you can guard them in a certain way’.
GETTY The Warriors won their third NBA title in four seasons this year