It’s been said many times, including often by me: DeMarcus Cousins just doesn’t seem to be a winning basketball player. Sure, he won some games this year, but only because the talent around him was so overwhelming that even his pouting and nodefense and bad attitude couldn’t bring the Warriors down. His injury, in my opinion (which is worth almost nothing, but whatever), didn’t do much damage at all to the Warriors’ championship hopes.
On the other hand, Andre Iguodala is very much a winning basketball player. He’s slowing way down in the “stats” department now that he’s 35 years old, but he still has the basketball IQ that once upon a time earned him the title of “LeBron 0.7”. He might not be able to shoot free throws or threes anymore, but the Warriors are way better with him on the court. It’s not like they need another guy who wants the ball to go with their starters. A guy like Iguodala being out there frees up even more shots for the dudes on the team who can make them (Jonas Jerebko, Draymond Green, etc).
Iguodala has become a permanent fixture on my channel. After spending most of the regular season chilling out and sipping fancy coffee drinks (made on Boris Diaw’s espresso machine which was kindly lent to him) on the bench, he’s come into the playoffs and STEPPED UP. Double digits and beyond are a regular occurrence for him now, and he’s a big part of the Warriors being able to hold off the Rockets these first two games. It’s almost enough to make one forget that he totally sabotaged a promising Nuggets team a couple years ago, wait, no it’s not, because I will never EVER forget what he did to that squad. EVER.