The Boogie Enigma

Hello everyone (hello Dave), and welcome to Garbage Time Pump Faker's first guest post, courtesy of the mysterious Jon Getz!

I'm torn on Boogie Cousins. On the one hand, he's been one of the few legitimate no-brainer double-double threats every single night since he came into the league four years ago, and on the other, he's just...volatile. 

Sacramento's win today against the Clippers was a microcosm of Boogie (who, let's be honest, has the best nickname in the NBA--what's more fun than screaming BOOOGIIEEEEEEE after he puts the fear of God into Jonas Valanciunas). He put up a 34/17/5 with three blocks, the Kings ran the offense through him in the last four minutes, and he had two beautiful drop passes down low that you would expect from someone like Steve Nash rather than a 6'11'' center. On the other hand, he looked disinterested, jogged up the court, and almost lost Sacramento the game with a stupid offensive goaltending on a Collison shot that was going in with 24.4 second left in the game.

Do we care too much about Boogie's "body language?" Would we even notice his sour looks if he didn't have his reputation? Probably, but that's like saying "if LeBron wasn't LeBron, people would call him a terrible teammate for embarrassing Mario Chalmers on a nightly basis last year." Most of the time, you earn both the free passes and criticisms you get.

I think the Boogie enigma, as much we want him to turn into a Tim Duncan-type that just goes about his business and doesn't mope when he doesn't get the ball for three possessions in a row, can be summed up like this--Boogie is the ridiculously talented pick-up basketball player that you just don't want to play with. You know the guy--he's got a wet jumper, killer handles, and can get to the rim whenever he wants, but if he thinks he got passed up when he was open he's going to walk back on D, leaving your team to play four on five defense. You'd almost prefer to play with a bunch of your buddies and risk losing the game (and then be relegated to pick-up purgatory, when there are eight guys who all "have next") than play with that guy and be guaranteed at least three straight wins. At least you and your teammates can bond over how much it sucks to play with him. Sometimes your Boogie is actually fun to play with, you enjoy yourself, and get to stay on the court for a bunch of games in a row. But the issue is when you start losing.

And with Darren Collison leading your team, losing is in Boogie's future. We'll see how long he can hold it together, because if he can, we're going to witness something really special.

You can follow Jon Getz at @jongetz09 where he'll overreact about Vanderbilt football and occasionally has humorous thoughts, and sometimes wonders if he is that pick up guy.