Sacramento Kings Midseason Grades: Center

The All-Star break provides as good a time as any to look back at the first half of the season and analyze how the Sacramento Kings are playing. Who’s taken a step forward? Who’s taken a step back? Who’s living up to our expectations?

The Royal Pain crew is here to do just that, so without further ado, here are our mid-season grades: one position per day, one grade per player.

In case you missed it, here are our grades for the Kings’ point guards, shooting guards, small forwards, and power forwards.

In the spirit of saving the best for last, here is our assessment of the Sacramento Kings centers.

DeMarcus Cousins (A) – What else can you say about this guy that hasn’t already been said? The Sacramento Kings first All-Star since 2004 ranks 6^th in the NBA in points per game, 4^th in free throw attempts, 3^rd in rebounds per game, 10^th in blocks per game, 7^th in PER, and list goes on and on. DeMarcus Cousins is elite.

He spent the first month of this season as a legitimate MVP contender before viral meningitis took him out for nearly a month. When he finally made his way back on the court, it was for a different head coach, and as he admitted in his interview with Bill Simmons over the All-Star break, it took him a while to get his conditioning back on point. His numbers certainly support that notion.

Cousins had a rough January as he was trying to play himself back into game shape. That, along with the Kings poor play under Corbin, are the only reasons’ why a ‘+’ isn’t next to his A. And that’s the scary part. He still has room for improvement.

I can’t remember seeing a player attract the kind of defensive attention that Cousins commands on a nightly basis. His numbers are impressive, but considering the way teams defend him, they are borderline unbelievable.

I went through some of my notes from earlier in the season, and the amount of times Cousins is double and even tripled teamed before he gets the ball is really something unique. A lot of really smart basketball people have called him the toughest cover in the NBA, and I’m inclined to agree.

There was one specific game against the Dallas Mavericks from January where I noted that Cousins was double teamed on just about every first quarter possession immediately after catching the ball, and Cousins would go on to score 14 points in that quarter. He finished the game with 32 points, 9 assists, and 16 rebounds shooting .524 from the field. This is against Tyson Chandler, I might add. He’s one of the best defending centers in the NBA. Cousins is amazing.

I don’t think Kings fans needed to see Cousins in the All-Star game as any sort of validation for what he brings to this team. We know how good he is, but the world is starting to find out, and that’s exciting. I couldn’t be happier for him.

We’ll see what George Karl has in store for Cousins in the second half of the season, and with a clean bill of health, it’s entirely possible that Cousins second half will be better than his first. How Karl uses DeMarcus moving forward is going to be fascinating.

Ryan Hollins (C) – Hollins’ playing time has been extremely limited this season, and that makes his evaluation a little more difficult than most. His numbers this season are basically in line with his career averages, so it’s not like he’s under producing or overproducing in his current 12^th man-type role. He is who he’s always been.

I generally like Hollins as an emergency center / sixth big man role. By all accounts, he’s a fantastic teammate, and a high-energy practice player. As far as I can tell, he’s performing those tasks at a high level. He’s one of the first Kings players up off the bench after a timeout. He’s always communicating to his teammates, and that sort of team building skill has to count for something.

His impact on the court has been minimal. His impact off the court is nearly impossible to gage, but the Kings knew what they were getting when they signed him to a one-year deal in the offseason. This is Ryan Hollins, and for better or worse, he’s living up to whatever the Kings expectations for him were. That’s about as average as it gets.

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