According to Shams Charania of the Athletic and posted by Jeff Garcia of Spurs Zone, San Antonio Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan is one of a few NBA players communicating with unrestricted free agent DeMarcus Cousins about possibly playing on the same team together.
Tuesday, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that the market for Cousins, who was projected to earn $10-12 million, was drying up and he wasn’t getting any serious offers with the majority of the teams already using their cap space.
Charania now reports that Cousins is waiting to see what Kawhi Leonard does before making his decision. Marc Stein of the New York Times also reported Wednesday that Cousins has switched the agency that represents him.
Now, while DeRozan might be trying to recruit Cousins to San Antonio, it’s unknown if the Spurs front office has any interest in Cousins. Just because a player thinks another player would be a good fit, the front office might have a different opinion.
Last season in a return-from-injury year, Cousins played in 30 games with the Warriors where he averaged 16.3 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 3.6 rebounds in the regular season.
While he had some moments in the Golden State Warriors’ playoff run, there were some games where he was benched because he was a liability on defense, when the Toronto Raptors tried to target him in the pick-and-roll.
The Spurs have around $3 million of the mid-level exception left depending on how they structure DeMarre Carroll’s deal. The problem though is there are no roster spots available at the moment.
IF the Spurs wanted to sign Cousins and he agreed to join, San Antonio would have to open a roster spot in one of two ways:
A) Waive a player – that most likely would be second year forward Chimezie Metu who is making $1.4 million and has a non-guaranteed contract next summer. The Spurs made a similar move a few years ago when they waived Livio Jean-Charles.
B) Trade a player – the Spurs could try to trade a player either to a team with cap space or a team with a trade exception that would fit player X into the exception.
