Barber: All eyes on Boogie Cousins' return for Warriors

OAKLAND - The man who dominated the news for the Warriors on Tuesday night didn't even play in their 122-95 win against the hapless New York Knicks at Oracle Arena. He sat at the end of the bench in a dark suit with high-rise cuffs, white socks and black sneakers.

That has been the usual spot for DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins this season. He hasn't played a real basketball game since Jan. 26, 2018, the night he tore his Achilles tendon while playing for the New Orleans Pelicans. Tuesday, multiple reports surfaced (the first I saw was from Marc Stein of the New York Times) saying that the Warriors are targeting Jan. 18, a game against the Clippers in Los Angeles, for the center's much-anticipated return.

“I think it will happen around that time,” coach Steve Kerr confirmed. “It's not as simple as ‘that's the game.' It's somewhere in that neighborhood.”

This would be news under any circumstances, because Cousins was the Warriors' splashy free-agent signing of 2018. His was one of the more intriguing moves of the entire NBA offseason. A four-time All-Star, one of the craftiest and most skilled and most tempestuous players in basketball, had elected to sign a one-year deal with the two-time defending NBA champions for the shockingly low price of $5.3 million.

The addition of Cousins was a sensation, but mostly as a curiosity, because the Warriors looked practically invincible heading into the 2018-19 season. They didn't need a fifth All-Star, but yeah, we'd be happy to feast our eyes on one for a few months, whenever he was able to run on two legs again.

As it turns out, Cousins' arrival looms much larger than that, at least in the short term. He might be exactly what it takes to shake the Warriors out of the doldrums that have beset them this season.

Boogie Cousins isn't a novelty, or a mere luxury item right now. He is a necessity.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. The Warriors had said goodbye to three veteran centers in the summer - Zaza Pachulia, David West and JaVale McGee - but they felt good about starting the season with a triumvirate of young centers whom they expected to grow into the position.

Unfortunately for the Warriors, the replacements have fallen far short of expectations. Kevon Looney is a smart and reliable player, and a versatile defender, but he is neither big for the position (at 6-foot-9, he's more of a power forward) nor particularly athletic. He can't hang with true centers like Denver's Nikola Jokic or Oklahoma City's Steven Adams. The inconsistent Jordan Bell has been a major disappointment, and is out of favor. Just once in the past 10 games has he played more than 10 minutes; he didn't enter Tuesday's game until 5:33 remained in a Golden State blowout.

Damian Jones had the most promise as a post player, but he's out with a significant injury, a torn pectoral muscle in his left arm.

So yes, the Warriors need DeMarcus Cousins. They need his scoring punch. They need his savvy and his size. They need his spark.

The Cousins Watch has been in effect all season, but now it's getting real. He has been practicing with the team for several weeks, his workload increasing, his agility improving.

“All I can tell you is it's closer now,” Kerr said before Tuesday's game. “Because the last week, his scrimmaging looks much better. Seems to me like he's gotten through a barrier, conditioning-wise.”

At practice the previous day, Kerr had described in more detail what he and the team medical staff want to see from Cousins before they clear him to play.

“Mainly, just confidence and conditioning,” Kerr said. “Confidence in his ability to get up and down the floor, and play a block of minutes at a high level. And I'm seeing dramatic improvement from him in the last couple weeks, with his wind, with his ability to run the floor. It's all been pretty exciting. So he's getting closer, but I still don't have a date for you.”

Or maybe we have one now. Maybe it's Jan. 18.

All of this paints Cousins as a thoroughbred in the starting gate, waiting to burst forth and make NBA opponents' heads spin. Of course, it's not that simple. If it were, he'd be playing already.

“It's not easy for anybody coming off of an Achilles injury, much less a center,” Kerr said before Tuesday's game. “He carries a lot of weight (270 pounds) and size. But the thing that everybody who has an Achilles comeback talks about is the movement in space, and how you have to get comfortable with those movements. It's not just like a sprained ankle or knee or something, where once it's healed you just feel normal. It's more about growing accustomed to the movement and the pounding.”

That has been Cousins' mission for most of a year. He is gradually regaining mobility and learning to trust his body once again. Before the Knicks game, he ran through drills with assistant coach Chris DeMarco, taking inlet passes, dribbling, pushing DeMarco away with his elbows and shooting from the mid-range. It was a lot of small, contained motion. It wasn't full-court basketball.

There's another issue, too. The Warriors don't know exactly how they will deploy Cousins. They are certain he'll be an asset. But will he change the flow of the offense? Will the ball stagnate when it goes to him in the post? Will he start or come off the bench? Can he provide the scoring that the Warriors have frequently lacked this year at the start of the second and fourth quarters? Will Cousins allow Kerr to play Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant together more?

To be determined, all of it.

“We have a decent idea of how we'd like to use DeMarcus, and in what rotations,” Kerr said. “But we have to see it, too. We've had to play around with a lot of the rotations this year. So it may not be as simple as ‘this looks good on paper.' We'll have to see what happens and work through it till we feel like we have it where it should be.”

The Warriors didn't really need Cousins on Tuesday. The Knicks have an amazing young center in Kristaps Porzingis, but he is out until at least the All-Star break with a torn ACL. Porzingis' replacement in the starting lineup, Luke Kornet, had nothing on Looney. Backup Enes Kanter played well, but the game was a laugher.

Bigger challenges lie ahead, though. The Mavericks and DeAndre Jordan on Sunday. The Nuggets and Jokic next Tuesday. The Pelicans and Anthony Davis on Jan. 16.

Those games are likely to expose the Warriors' holes under the basket. And then, if the reports are accurate, Cousins will arrive to plug the gap. And the Great Boogie Experiment will be underway. It will make the Warriors the most interesting team in the NBA again and, who knows, perhaps the best.