Cousins and Karl: An Enigmatic Partnership

The pairing of George Karl and DeMarcus Cousins presents a dynamic that, upon investigation, outstretches basketball’s limited scope. You know the story. It transcends Xs and Os.

As a result, interpersonal factors like temperament, personality and ego have dominated the conversations that seek to analyze the probability of success or failure resulting from their relationship. Basic basketball compatibility, on the other hand, strictly from an actual, on-court standpoint, has been given a disproportionate amount of attention.

For example: How will Cousins, a traditional-style back-to-the-basket, post-up big man, play in Karl’s dribble-drive offense? How will Karl, a headstrong but ultimately adaptable head coach, utilize his best player — a 6 foot 11 inch, 270 pound center — in a system that aims to outrun and outshoot its opponents?

It isn’t to disregard the importance of human relationships or interactions in athletic success, but, at the same time, it’s basketball. Shouldn’t respective philosophies, traits, strengths and weaknesses, strictly from a basketball standpoint, play a significant role in forecasting Cousins and Karl’s success together? It’s been a component of the conversation, sure, but it deserves more recognition than what its been given.

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Last season, using their win-loss records as evidence, each of Sacramento’s three head coaches did little to distinguish his own effectiveness at coaching a winning Kings team. Mike Malone willed an incomplete roster to an 11-13 record before his Christmas time firing, substitute Tyrone Corbin won only seven of the 28 contests in which he called the shots (mostly just attempts, few conversions), and George Karl’s Kings went 11-19 among certain injuries, outside distractions and organizational shortcomings.

In three previous instances, Karl assumed head coaching responsibilities for a team mid-season, then led each to a winning record and, eventually, the playoffs (the Seattle Supersonics in 1992, the Milwaukee Bucks in 1999, and the Denver Nuggets in 2005, per Basketball-Reference). That streak was unsurprisingly broken last year.

Thankfully, in a result atypical to takeaways from recent seasons, equally-bad results yielded a few encouraging silver linings—specifically, from an offensive perspective.

With the ball in hand, Karl’s Kings operated in a scheme more visually attractive and statistically impressive than those of seasons past, however far from perfect. Despite inheriting a roster that, with a few exceptions, matched the one that crawled dispiritedly into last year’s All-Star break the future Hall of Famer turned things around.

Per NBA.com, in 30 games, Sacramento’s field goal percentage rose from 45.5 percent without Karl to 46.2 percent with him, from 12th in the Association to 6th in that time frame. Comparatively, the team’s three-point percentage increased from 34.1 percent to 36.8 percent (21st to 7th), assists per game grew by 1.8 APG (20.3 to 22.1, 26th to 12th), and the Kings scored, on average, 2.3 more points per game in Karl’s offense (101.3 to 103.6), moving up seven spots to 7th overall.

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Speed played a big part. Strictly in terms of PACE, Karl’s Kings were the sixth-fastest group in the league, clocking 99.17 possessions per 48 minutes, per NBA.com. Only three playoff teams (the Mavericks, Rockets and Warriors) and two non-playoff, nonetheless better teams (the Nuggets and Thunder) played faster.

(The “run-and-gun” style of the 2014-15 Sacramento Kings wasn’t entirely exclusive to Karl’s regime. Last season’s Mike Malone/Tyrone Corbin team played far from slow in their own right, and placed as the ninth-fastest team in terms of PACE before the All-Star break, per NBA.com. Still, Karl’s offense effectively incorporated substantially more ball movement, assisting and off-the-ball activity in contrast to Malone and Corbin’s systems, and was faster, if only marginally, nonetheless.)

Functionally, the promise of playing faster, at least in Sacramento’s case, is done in two main parts: to circumvent weaknesses and complement strengths. Playing faster circumvents struggles with creating offense in the half court by attacking unsteady defenses in transition, taking advantage of imbalances that would be otherwise ignored in a slower scheme. And it complements the athleticism of Darren Collison, Ben McLemore, Rudy Gay, Omri Casspi and Willie Cauley-Stein, among others, and the rebounding and outlet passing of DeMarcus Cousins.

And for a team that looks to run in transition, you can’t undervalue rebounding and outlet passing—the inherent ability to intercept what was the opponent’s basketball, to scan for and locate an open teammate — whether he’s stationed near mid-court or streaking toward its opposite end — to whom you accurately deliver the ball à la Aaron Rodgers (a Kings fan, btw). There may be no better way, both visually and analytically speaking, to start a possession.

This is a facet of fast-paced basketball that Boogie is particularly adept at.

Cousins averaged 12.7 rebounds per game last season, the third-best mark in the NBA. In percentage of rebounds per chance (“the number of rebounds a player recovers compared to the number of rebounding chances”), Cousins’ rate was 69.2 percent, good for eighth in the NBA, and fifth among centers. His 5.2 contested rebounds per game (“the number of rebounds gathered where an opponent is within 3.5 feet”) tied for the third-highest mark in the association, with Hassan Whiteside and Tyson Chandler, per Synergy via NBA.com.

Just as DeMarcus’ rebounding alone boosts the output and efficiency of George Karl’s offense, in turn, Karl’s system figures to benefit Cousins’ overall production moving forward. And it already has.

In 19 games together, Cousins’ usage rate rose from 34 to 34.7 percent, his field goal percentage increased eight points (.465 to .473), his offensive rating leapt from 103 to 106, and his points per game (23.8 to 24.8), total rebounds per game (12.5 to 13.1) and assists per game (3.3 to 4.1) saw incremental gains as well, per Basketball-Reference.

Yes, sample size — a statistician’s central antagonist — is surely an ingredient, but not a determining factor.

Consider that, through the first 52 games of last season, Sacramento’s potential for success was quickly capped by ill-timed firings and ill-conceived strategies, which considerably crippled the Kings’ — and its All-Star’s — output. To boot, Karl’s first (and only) 30 contests as Sacramento’s head coach weren’t without its share of hurdles—what with a constantly-winded Cousins, an out-of-order Darren Collison, and far less practice time than is required to properly install entirely new offensive and defensive schemes.

Alas, grabbing transition baskets in the NBA is the rough equivalent of searching out and assembling the straight-edged border pieces of a boxed jigsaw puzzle. It’s a good start, a practice you’d be best served implementing, but your work in piecing together an entire puzzle, or offense, is far from done.

After all, of the 101.3 points the 2014-15 Kings averaged per game, only 14.9 points came as a direct result of fastbreak play types, the eighth-best mark in the NBA, per teamrankings.com.

Thus, Cousins’ unmatched influence in Karl’s offense reaches far beyond his aptitude in rebounding and long-passing alone. He’s its unquestioned on-court proprietor. It’s true: this Kings roster has more playmakers and shooters to shoulder more offensive responsibility, but DeMarcus will undoubtedly remain the unchallenged centerpiece of Sacramento’s offense—ensuring that the vast majority of his offensive impact will come from half court sets.

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As last season’s fifth-highest scorer in the NBA, post-up play types accounted for 30 percent of Cousins’ total offensive possessions, the 17th-highest figure among all position players, per Synergy via NBA.com. (Only LaMarcus Aldridge, who averages 23.4 points per game as a post-up threat on 36.5 percent of his offensive occasions, is close to matching DeMarcus’ scoring output.)

Take Cousins’ fondness for the paint, combine it with his ability to score there, stir in a desolate region mostly devoid of any consistent scoring threat (known in Sleep Train as the area immediately behind the three-point line), and things like this happen, where all five defenders are within a fathom’s reach of Boogie:

Last year’s personnel provided few solutions to such a defensive “tactic.” Apart from Omri Casspi, Darren Collison, Rudy Gay and Ben McLemore, no King commanded enough perimeter respect to distract from Cousins’ inside threat. As a result, defenses could double, triple, quadruple or, as evidenced, sometimes quintuple team Sacramento’s center with little regard for consequence.

And Jason Thompson’s paint-dependent, space-consuming presence didn’t help matters. It’s no coincidence that, apart from Cousins, Thompson is the only other constant in each picture.

Now JT is gone, as are many others whose respective styles did more to hurt Sacramento’s spacing than help it. Out go Thompson, Carl Landry, Ryan Hollins, Reggie Evans, Ray McCallum, Nik Stauskas, Derrick Williams and Andre Miller, whose combined career three-point percentage comes out to roughly 18 percent.

In come Kosta Koufos, Willie Cauley-Stein, Quincy Acy, Duje Dukan, Rajon Rondo, Marco Belinelli, James Anderson and Seth Curry, who have combined to shoot approximately 27 percent from the NBA three (using Dukan’s Summer League stats and Curry’s Developmental League figures).

Now, defenses face a dilemma. By giving Cousins the same inordinate amount of attention, teams run the risk of conceding more open threes, which figure to be converted more consistently this year. In turn, shifting focus away from DeMarcus and on to his teammates will only boost the big man’s production, since few opposing NBA centers can contain him single-handedly.

This way, Karl and the Kings can turn what was a weakness into leverage for greater offensive potential.

Undoubtedly, there are facets from the games of those departing that the Kings will sorely miss: Thompson’s longevity, Evans’ energy, Miller’s ingenuity. At the same time, their replacements’ strengths inspire reason for positive change: Koufos and Cauley-Stein’s defending, Belinelli’s shooting, Rondo’s playmaking.

Weighing the contributions of those exiting against the abilities of those incoming, this offseason’s theme is clarified: it has been a summer of transition. Transition of roster, of coaching staff, of front office members and, perhaps most importantly, of the relationship between the team’s best player and coach.

Which is to say, a partnership once ripe in toxicity may very well benefit each man mutually.

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