The Lakers will waive injured center DeMarcus Cousins to open up a roster spot, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne report (via Twitter).
The Lakers are planning to sign forward Markieff Morris, who was bought out by Detroit on Friday, assuming he clears waivers.
Cousins signed a one-year, $3.5MM contract to join another contender after spending an injury-plagued season with Golden State. Cousins suffered a torn ACL in his left knee in August but expressed hope this week that he could return for the postseason.
The front office opted to fortify the team’s frontcourt with versatile forward who’s healthy rather than attempt to integrate Cousins into the rotation during the playoffs.
The Lakers will likely wait until Sunday night, when Morris would clear waivers, to officially part ways with Cousins, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks. Cousins has approximately $1MM left on his contract and a claiming team would gain his non-Bird rights. The $1.75MM Disabled Player Exception the Lakers were awarded after Cousins’ injury can still be used before the March 10 expiration date (Twitter link).
Stoopid…
Waive Dudley
how they wavie a hurt player who may or may not play in the playoffs. who wavie a healthy player over cousin
Dudley has actually contributed a bit for the Lakers. Cousins is just taking up a roster spot.
Exactly
Cousins isnt playing this year and if he did hed be a nuisance compared to McGee and D12
Wow! Did not see this coming. He’s going to be maaaaad.
Right after the article of him hoping to come back for the playoffs.
I was just thinking that I thought I saw an article about him being hopeful he’d be ready for the playoffs within like the last day or two. I really think Cousins is turning into one of those guys who just can’t accept they aren’t stars anymore
Probably just good intentions from the org
Clippers should sign Cousins. They could do with a back up centre and imagine if he somehow becomes fit during the playoffs.
Beverly PG Kawhi Morris and Cousins plus that bench would be unstoppable
Houston’s gonna claim him off waivers then dump Green just to stop the Lakers. Petty? Of course, surprising? No…
Morris that is….
It’s not petty it’s genius, wish more teams would roll this way.
I don’t know about genius but it’s a loophole they technically could use. Question would be though would Markieff be ok with it or does he become an unhappy Rockets camper. Guess that depends on where he personally wants to be.
Considering the fact that Morris’ player option for another year would kick in if claimed off waivers, it would not be genius at all. Regardless of where Morris ends up, the Rockets are not getting past either L.A. team in the playoffs.
Warriors??
Bucks should go get him that’d be insane
People on here commenting like this dude is the old boogie lol, he literally has had 2 of the worst career type ending injuries in a 3 year span. He’s not helping anyone this year and maybe for not half of next season.
And it would be tough to integrate him into the rotation during the playoffs, on the remote chance that he can be healthy and remain so.
I doubt he will be much help to anyone after all of the injuries he has suffered through recently. Even though he will only be turning 30 this summer, it’s highly unlikely that a player his size (with his extensive injury history) will ever be anything more than an extremely limited role-player even when he’s healthy enough to play again.
Yeah, I’m a little surprised at the pushback here. If you erase the name value, and just look at it for what it is, the headline would be “Lakers to waive injured role player X”. It’d be a blurb, and no one would blink.
Hey Cousins will still be rehabbing at the lakers facility and they will bring him back next season. I really don’t believe that another team will claim him and also provide rehab for him. So more than likely he will be a laker next season.
Cousins wants to sit out the regular season and only play in the playoffs … what a waste of talent
I doubt he really WANTS to do that considering he tore his ACL and is out for the season.
well he only had one of the worse injuries you can get that makes most guys miss more than season.
Stooooopid.
^^ Doesn’t follow basketball
Cousins in Houston would look nice.
He can shoot the 3 ball to suit that offence
He’s too tall to play for the Rockets
Boogie to the Knicks
Max contract.
Goes without saying.
Wow, says yesterday he’ll be back for the postseason, today gets waived. I’m no Boogie fan, but that sucks for him.
Great opportunity for Warriors who were hard capped, beef up its center spot with Looney injury prone lately and theSmailagic project.
They are still hard-capped but they don’t want to use up all of the $1.6M in luxury tax space they have available to them. The Warriors need to avoid the repeater tax this year, because unless they drastically change their roster they will be back in luxury tax territory next year. They only have 12 players on their roster at present before they add Bender this weekend, so any other roster additions need to be as cheap as possible.
There’s a link in the article to another several hours ago where Cousins says he is looking forward to returning for the playoffs.
Kind of a news cycle war, not over yet.
Morris makes a Clipper-Laker series even more interesting.
Hear Pat Riley is looking for a big man for added rim protection. He’s been known to take a flyer on a Center from time to time.
Was mutal interest back in July. Although he may be looking more for now than later. Still a bummer for Boogie, playoffs to playground.
There goes that minute chance that he will play again this season, despite the hopes of Laker fans. Who will sign him to a minimum contract this summer?
Already being reported he plans to stay and rehab with lakers and resign next summer. Was spotted at lakers game tonight smiling and working out with staff. Sorry guys.
Yeah seems like the most probable outcome is he goes unclaimed and stays working out for the Lakers then resigns this off-season. However as he is technically being waived — if any team out there is willing to claim him and his remaining $1M salary and give him a roster spot (despite him being hurt and possibly not even able to return for the playoffs) he would HAVE to go to the new/claiming team — or forfeit his remaining $1M. But in that scenario the claiming team would also still hold his non-bird rights for this off-season… so if a team is willing to go forward with claiming him. More likely than not he would actually wind up rehabbing (and potentially) trying to suit up for them come the postseason.
The Celtics should claim him! I know Theis (especially tonight) and Kanter have been playing well and Williams is coming back soon too. But if Cousins really can get healthy in time for the playoffs that would be a really nice big body to have at their disposal when facing off with the Likes of Embiid and Giannis — the issue is that they’d have to waive/release someone to sign him as they have a full roster — and given the guys they’ve got on their roster there probably isn’t really anyone they are willing to part with to claim a guy who might not even make it back this season. The only exception would be Porier but the issue there is that he’s currently their 3rd Center and with Williams still hurt and Cousins obviously not ready to go any time soon. They probably can’t afford to let him go and be down to just Theis and Kanter (and Tacko in the G-League) until Williams comes back.
Cousins was healthy enough to play for the Warriors in the playoffs last season and it did not last long at all. I find it hard to believe he will be able to contribute much, if at all, in the playoffs this season. It’s one thing to get healthy enough to step onto the court, but quite another to have time to both get in game shape and get integrated into a given team’s rotation.
There’s a lot of I’d him on my team for a guy coming off a torn Achilles, quad and ACL… He’s not going to be a factor this year and likely won’t be close to his early self
There one team cousin should consider going to and there one team should want him . It time , Washington , his best friend John wall it time he come to Washington , next year they both can stay health god will this cold be the wizards
Pgs wall, smith , Napier
Sg Beal , Robinson, Payton or Matthews
Sf brown , the draft pick , either bongs or schofield
Pf hachimora , Bertrans , Wagner
C cousins , Bryant , pasechiks
Now I think could be play off team
Pending on tear and rehab it’s possible for him to be back for playoffs. It’ll be 8 months so a backup at about 12-15 minutes is possible, maybe.
Perfect fit for the Heat with Bam playing 35 minutes.
I feel like he could be interesting on the Heat, depending on what they could do with him defensively, and potentially getting him away from being a ball stopper, assuming health.