‘I’ll Start Him’: DeMarcus Cousins Gearing Up for Return

DeMarcus Cousins will be immediately in Golden State’s lineup when he makes his long-anticipated season debut next week.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, though, says Boogie’s playing time has yet to be determined.

Cousins reveals that the negotiation over his return date “was all over the place.”

Per The Athletic:

“I’ll start him,” Kerr said. “After that, everything is on the table. We need to figure out what the rotations will look like, how many minutes he can play. We’ll have to play around with the minutes, the combinations, the sets. We haven’t had a player like him here before. So it’ll be new. It won’t be a plug him and he’ll fit right in. We’re going to play through him some. So there will be a period where we all have to adapt.”

How did they land on Jan. 18 as the target return date?

“It was a battle between myself, the training staff, the guys at the top,” Cousins said. “Eventually we all got on the same page and settled on that date.”

One thing that became very clear during Cousins’ interview is how much of a push and pull it has been between the Warriors’ decision makers, who have preached patience, and a stubborn star, now just six months away from another important foray into free agency, desperate to restart his productive career.

“(The target date) was all over the place, honestly,” Cousins said, when asked if he wanted to return sooner. “There’s not really a point on getting into what date we wanted. But we ended up finding this date, so let’s get ready for the 18th.”

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DeMarcus Cousins Expected to Make Season Debut Next Week