Happy Welcome Back Boogie Day
We knew this day was coming, we knew that eventually the Warriors were going to be adding an elite blue chip big man to their already ridiculous roster, and today is that day. After patiently waiting and rehabbing for what seemed like forever Boogie Cousins will be making his return to basketball today when the Warriors face the Clippers. Now while it’s true nobody knows how Boogie will look coming off this achilles injury, and it’s true that past history with big men having this injury isn’t all that kind, but let’s not kid ourselves. Boogie is going to be awesome and deep down you know that to be true. At 28 years old he’s still fairly young, and even if he’s only like 85% of the player he was before he got hurt, we all understand how good of a player that still is right?
A career 21.5/11/3.2 player, let’s take a look at what this starting five is going to look like since Kerr basically told us he’s starting once he got back
PG – Steph Curry
SG – Klay Thompson
SF – Kevin Durant
PF – Draymond Green
C – Boogie
That is some shit you build in 2K when you turn off computer trades and are able to add whoever you want to your team. Granted their starting 5 was already ridiculous, but this is without a doubt the best big man the Warriors have ever had during their entire run. Usually their center spot is more of a whatever position, the role of that player is to defend, rebound and maybe catch some lobs. Well now with Boogie that all changes. They now have another #1 option that they can play through if they want to switch things up. Before the strategy may have been try and go big against GS because nobody matches up with them by going small, only now that’s not possible. That right there is a huge advantage for a team that certainly doesn’t really need any additional help.
The addition of Boogie now allows them to match up with however a team wants to play. They can slow things down and kill you in the halfcourt, they can go big if they want, the possibilities really are endless. Add to that the fact that Boogie made a career best 2.2 3PM last year before he got hurt, it’s not even like they are losing any shooting by giving him minutes. I think the upgrade from like Kevon Looney is pretty massive here, no matter how Boogie looks. Just thing about the possibilities of clearing out and dumping it down to Boogie on the block and surrounding him with shooters. What, you’re going to double off someone and leave anyone on the team wide open? No that’s not it. So then you decide to try and defend Boogie without help, and yeah, that tends to not work out well for defenders.
When this news first broke this summer, I think we all had the same reaction. It didn’t seem fair that a team like GS could get a player like Boogie for so cheap. Someone, anyone could have offered him that money and nobody wanted to touch him. Fucking morons because now look what happened. Now he’s going to help GS win a ring, probably pull some bullshit and find a way to resign there and at that point we’re all going to be doomed for the foreseeable future.
Personally, I love Boogie as a player so this is pretty conflicting for me. I want him to do well, but at the same time I am going to resent it once the Warriors start dominating even more. Already on a 6 game winning streak this doesn’t seem all that fair, but again anyone could have had him. If you don’t really remember what Boogie looked like because it’s been so long since he played, well this is what’s coming. Find cover
Sigh, god dammit.