Draymond Green didn’t hesitate to sign DeMarcus Cousins to the Warriors five years ago to add to their already star-studded roster.
The Warriors forward was joined by his former teammate on the latest episode of The Draymond Green Show, where Green recalled a panicked phone call he received from then-Warriors general manager Bob Myers about the possibility of adding the four-time NBA All-Star to a roster that already included Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant and himself.
“Bob called me and Bob was like, ‘Yo…’ he’s panicking, almost like he’s hyperventilating, like, ‘Yo, it’s crazy what’s going on. I know you’re on vacation, but I think we can get DeMarcus Cousins, what do you think?'” Green recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Bob, what? What are you talking about?’ He was like, ‘I think we can get DeMarcus Cousins.’ He was like, ‘How do you feel about it? When I talked to him, it seemed like he was on it, but he needs to talk to you and Steph (Curry), and he really needs to talk to you because you guys are probably all mixed up or something.'”
“And I said, ‘First of all, Bob, that’s no problem at all. And second of all, Bob, if you can get DeMarcus Cousins, you’ll damn well get DeMarcus Cousins…if you can get DeMarcus Cousins, you’ll get DeMarcus Cousins.’ And I remember how the whole thing went down and you ended up on the team during your rehab.”
After tearing his left Achilles tendon midway through the 2017–2018 season, Cousins signed a modest one-year mid-level exception contract with Golden State in July 2018 worth $5.3 million.
The then-28-year-old missed the first 45 games of the Warriors’ 2018-2019 season before making his debut for Golden State in mid-January. In 30 games with the Warriors, Cousins averaged 16.3 points, 8.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game and averaged 25.7 minutes on the court.
His adjustment to the system was initially difficult after recovering from a serious leg injury. Nevertheless, Cousins and the Warriors eventually developed a cohesion that took them to the NBA Finals, where they eventually lost to the Toronto Raptors in six games.
“There were a lot of difficult moments where I felt out of place at times, the rhythm wasn’t right and I was trying to find my own game on offense,” Cousins told Green. “A lot of things were going against me and then there was the confidence in my movements. I was doing things that I was used to but my mind was telling me, ‘You can still do that,’ but my body is not on the same wavelength.
“It was very difficult, but to your credit, I had a really good group around me. You really welcomed me, you worked with me, you allowed me to find my way in it and finally it worked. It really worked. We finally found our rhythm, everyone found their place in the team and everyone was successful at the same time.”
Cousins spent a year with the Warriors before signing with the Los Angeles Lakers the following offseason. The veteran big man then tore his ACL in a pickup game before the 2019-2020 season and never played another game for the Lakers.
After brief stints with the Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Clippers and Milwaukee Bucks over the next two seasons, the Warriors finally faced Cousins and the Denver Nuggets in the 2022 playoffs, winning the franchise’s fourth championship in eight seasons.
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