DeMarcus Cousins is now reportedly targeting a post-Christmas return date
DeMarcus Cousins missed his targeted return for training camp, and Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr warned that the All-Star center’s clearance for full scrimmage work at the start of this month did not signal an imminent return, but we finally have a clearer timeframe for his comeback.
Cousins now aims to make his Warriors debut “sometime after Christmas,” per Mercury News reporter Logan Murdock. He has not played a game in earnest since tearing his left Achilles tendon on Jan. 26.
Cousins had hoped to return during the team’s forthcoming five-game road trip, but a meeting on Friday with Warriors director of sports medicine and performance Rick Celebrini and the training staff pushed the 28-year-old’s timeline back in hopes of improving his conditioning, according to Murdock.
This all falls in line with what ESPN’s Zach Lowe reported soon after Cousins told The Undefeated in July, “I’m shooting for training camp. It’s not B.S.” Lowe cited sources then that pegged late November or early December as optimistic and pointed toward a return “around Christmas” as more realistic.
It also jibes with what Kerr told reporters last week, when he predicted an update on Cousins soon. Cousins put in scrimmage work before Saturday’s victory against the Sacramento Kings and again prior to Monday’s game against the Orlando Magic, according to Murdock, but with a busy game schedule and a sparsity of healthy bodies, there have been few opportunities for 5-on-5 action.
“I don’t have any update in terms of when he might play,” Kerr said on Friday, per the San Francisco Chronicle’s Connor Letourneau. “He’s continuing to build strength in his rehab program with Rick. I talked to Rick today about him. That has to go hand in hand with the conditioning. Conditioning needs to come with more court time, more scrimmage time. We have so many games bunched up right now that we haven’t really had a chance to get DeMarcus into a scrimmage situation. That’ll be coming.”
The Warriors have strung together two straight victories after a four-game losing streak — the longest of the Kerr era — that was inflamed by a dustup between Kevin Durant and Draymond Green. Adding injury to insult, Green will miss a sixth straight game with a toe injury and Curry will miss his 10th straight with a groin injury. Both could return during the team’s upcoming road trip, which begins with a much-anticipated meeting with the East-leading Toronto Raptors on Thursday, and the team’s chemistry will be tested again weeks later when they try to incorporate Cousins by next month’s end.
Cousins was averaging 25.2 points, 12.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 3.2 combined blocks and steals for the New Orleans Pelicans when he tore his Achilles playing against the Houston Rockets in January.
The Pelicans proceeded to make a late-season push for the playoffs, but the injury cost Cousins his chance to make his career postseason debut. Signing with the Warriors over the summer on a one-year, $5.3 million midlevel exception contract all but guarantees that he will finally appear in a playoff game, but the reasons for his absence from meaningful basketball moments remain a concern.
Injecting Cousins into the powder keg that is the Durant and Green saga will test basketball tenets and provide a window into whether talent can outweigh cohesion when constructing a contender.
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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
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