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"That injury bug bro, nobody is exempt from it" - Boogie believes the 2019 Warriors would have won it all if not wrecked by injuries
By Yakshpat Bhargava,
2024-07-26
The Golden State Warriors came the closest to achieving a three-peat in the modern-day NBA. Following their consecutive championship victories in 2017 and 2018, the team seemingly went all in when they acquired DeMarcus Cousins for the 2018-19 campaign, who, at the time, was recuperating from a severe Achilles tendon rupture that had prematurely ended his second season with the New Orleans Pelicans.
However, despite assembling a superteam for the campaign, Boggie admitted how that star-studded affair and failure to fulfill the expectation of winning a championship was a 'rough run' for him personally.
DeMarcus Cousins on his time with the Warriors
The Warriors' offensive prowess was already well-established, with Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant each averaging over 20 points per game. As a result, the team's league-leading offensive rating in the 2018-19 campaign was unsurprising.
Moreover, Cousins, despite featuring in merely 48 games in the previous campaign after tearing his left Achilles tendon, registered an All-Star nod, averaging 25.2 points and 12.9 rebounds per game. Clearly, even though DMC wasn't at his healthiest, his big-man dominance raised the expectations that he would add immensely to the already loaded Golden State team and their high-value impact.
Although the 4-time All-Star didn't make his debut until January 2019, he felt that the team was invincible. In a detailed account on 'The Knuckleheads Podcast,' the 6'10" center emphasized how even the most exceptionally assembled teams can be rendered ineffective when plagued by injuries.
"It was a rough run. It was a lot of hype with that team coming in, it was considered one of the greatest," Cousins said. "Obviously, (there) was pressure to win, and on top of being pressured to win, we wanted to win. We expected to win, we thought we were going to win it. But that injury bug, bro, nobody is exempt from it. Man, that's the part of sports that suck."
Cousins is certain the NBA landscape would have been different
Given that the Warriors had lost just four games en route to featuring in the championship round against the Toronto Raptors, and their biggest defeat was by only 8 points, they seemed destined to hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy. However, the Warriors weren't just hampered by Cousins averaging 8.3 points in the Finals. Seeing Durant and Thompson also pick up injuries, things only went downhill.
Therefore, DMC contemplated that if Golden State had won the championship in 2019, he was certain the NBA's landscape would have been completely different.
"I always think if (the Warriors) would have won it that year, the way we were expected to, what would have happened from that point?" Cousins added. "What would the league have looked like moving forward?"
Safe to say, the Warriors' failure to win a championship that year ultimately led KD to part ways and Thompson to be sidelined during his prime years. This ultimately opened the door for other teams to win a championship. But, if Kerr's team had won the Larry O'Brien trophy, Cousins is right — who knows, the Dub Dynasty might have been even greater than the Chicago Bulls' dynasty in the 1990s.
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