LOS ANGELES — It was a show before the show as approximately 70-80 NBA professionals — front-office personnel, scouts, agents, photographers, videographers and writers — camped tightly along the sideline and baseline to watch DeMarcus Cousins warm up. When Cousins emerged from the locker room to take the court and saw the massive crowd awaiting his arrival, he shook his head. “That [expletive] was crazy,” Cousins told Yahoo Sports an hour before making his season debut Friday against the Los Angeles Clippers after being sidelined for nearly a year because of a torn left Achilles tendon. “I’ve been in the NBA for how many years? It’s never been like that for me before.” The increased attention was uncomfortable for the 6-foot-10 center, but it didn’t end there. It extended into the game. With each field goal, rebound and 3-pointer from Cousins, the majority of the crowd at Staples Center applauded and cheered. DeMarcus Cousins sprints up the court against the Clippers on Friday night. (Getty) Despite fouling out in 15 minutes of play, his debut couldn’t have gone any smoother. Cousins scored 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting that included 3-of-4 from 3-point range, grabbed six rebounds and had three assists in a 112-94 Warriors victory. “I didn’t anticipate him making three 3-pointers,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “I know he can shoot from out there. We all know that, but first-game jitters and fatigue, I wouldn’t have expected him to knock down the two big shots that really broke the whole game open.” And when he collected his sixth personal foul, he was greeted to a standing ovation. “Probably the fakest love I’ve ever received in my life,” he said after the game. “I honestly don’t see how guys like Steph [Curry] and [Kevin Durant] do it on a daily where it’s cameras on them all day. I don’t like it, at all. So, hopefully this is the last day of this.” As he returned to the locker room following his postgame media address, on the floor by his locker stall was the game ball the team awarded him. Cousins picked it up, and called for a team official to place it in safekeeping. Story continues “This [expletive] scored 14 points and is talking about, ‘Put my ball up?’” Durant joked as he stood near Cousins while getting dressed. “He’s acting like he scored 50.” Cousins replied, “I think my plus-minus was the highest in the game,” to which Durant quickly pointed out that Draymond Green actually had the highest plus-minus. Cousins started cracking up. It only took a minute and a half into the contest for Cousins to score, and it came in thunderous fashion. Durant called for a pick on the right wing, and Cousins rolled. Durant threaded the needle between two defenders with a nice bounce pass, and Cousins gathered the ball and exploded in the air, flushing down an emphatic one-handed dunk. And when he landed, he let out a deafening roar before casually strutting back on defense. “I felt like a kid on Christmas,” Cousins said during his postgame address. “It’s been a long journey that I’ve said plenty of times. This was probably one of the best days of my life, just being out there on the floor, playing the game that I love.” Speaking to the media after the game for close to 10 minutes, Cousins came off humble, sincere and appreciative. But in the midst of it all, he was still the feisty personality that makes him such a polarizing figure. He let it be known he isn’t a fan of Clippers center Marcin Gortat. Sources said that disagreement stems from past remarks from the Clippers’ big man, who said Cousins is on his list of guys he’d like to fight if the NBA adopted a 20-second fighting interlude. “Man, y’all lucky this is my first day back, or I’d tell you how I really feel about buddy,” Cousins said about Gortat. “But I’m going to be cool and stay on this side. Wait until I get in midseason form.” That intimidating edge isn’t going anywhere, but what has surprised teammates is what Cousins listens to that helps sustain that disposition. Cousins got through an arduous, year-long rehabilitation with the assistance of various slow jams. His musical preferences at times featured Luther Vandross, Babyface and Aretha Franklin. The songs crept into the Warriors’ facility before practices, which threw off some of his teammates, who prefer to sweat it out while listening to hip-hop. “Man, you don’t know if he’s getting ready to make love or preparing to shoot a basketball,” one member of the Warriors organization told Yahoo Sports while laughing. “It’s hard to work out when your mom’s music is on.” Cousins isn’t bothered by the differences in musical preference. “It’s always the young guys on the team who complain,” Cousins told Yahoo Sports. “I’m like, ‘Bro, is this all y’all listen to?’ They’re listening to ‘Mo Bamba’ [song] and all this other [expletive]. I need to slow it down with some ’80s and ’90s music. That’s how I get down.” While Kerr was singing Cousins’ praises to the media, Curry walked around the media in the arena corridors, playfully yelling, “DeMarcus sucks!” If Cousins stays healthy, the rest of the Association is in trouble. The Warriors possess a true All-Star starting five, and per the Elias Sports Bureau, the Warriors became the first team since the 1975-76 Boston Celtics to play five players who were All-Stars the previous year. The Warriors’ juggernaut became even scarier Friday night, and Cousins’ presence might make this team unstoppable. And unfortunately for Cousins, the limelight will continue to shine on him. More from Yahoo Sports: • NFL conference title game picks vs. the spread • Serena rolls but Venus falls at Australian Open • Melo reportedly has ‘multiple options’ for NBA return • Bills Hall of Famer Jim Kelly is cancer-free again<doc-sep>Golden State is good at making history. They’re efficient, one might say. They lead the league in leading the league. The Warriors never go too long without a new landmark, be it Klay Thompson’s 14 3-pointers in one game, or the record for most points scored in an opening quarter, which they set Tuesday against Denver. The Warriors dropped 51 points in 12 regulation minutes, went on to win 142-111, then chased the victory by talking about their next bit of history-making: The Warriors will be the first team to play five All-Stars from the previous season since the 1975-76 Celtics when DeMarcus Cousins logs his first minutes as a Warrior on Friday against the Clippers. “Hopefully,” Draymond Green said after the game, “it’s devastating for everybody else.” What is a 51-point quarter against the former top seed in the West, if not devastation? Yet the Warriors have never cared much for considering what it means to go too far. This is the team, after all, that signed Kevin Durant one year removed from a championship. On Friday, the super in super team will carry even more weight. The four All-Stars—Steph Curry, Durant, Thompson, and Green—will become five. Boogie’s back. Cousins was averaging 25.2 points and a career-high 12.9 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game with New Orleans when he tore his left Achilles tendon—an especially worrisome injury for big men. Come the offseason, the Pelicans didn’t offer Cousins a long-term contract, not wanting to give a huge guarantee to a player with a red flag hanging over him. So the Warriors swooped in and used their $5.3 million taxpayer mid-level exception to sign him to a deal both knew wouldn’t be revisited after this season. Golden State won’t have the budget for Boogie next year, but also had nothing to lose (except pace and perhaps chemistry); he has four months to prove himself and 29 teams to prove himself to. Here are four questions going into his return: How will Cousins’s game fit with the Warriors? For the first time in his career, Cousins won’t be a first, second, or even third option on offense. “I won’t be taking as many shots as I have in the past,” he said in anticipation of the game. In his first year with Golden State, Durant averaged his fewest points per game since his rookie season. Cousins will likely see an even greater drop-off—especially considering his injury—but he can maximize his proficiency in the post in an offense as spread out as Golden State’s. Cousins is one of the game’s elite centers, with the ability to be an inside-out threat. He can score inside, he’s a post threat, he shoots a 33.8 percent mark from 3, and he can act as a ball handler. If everything goes right, Boogie could help the Warriors unlock another level, putting five floor-spacers on the court at once. “We haven’t had a player like him before, so it will be new,” Steve Kerr said. “It won’t be a simple ‘plug him in and he’ll fit right in.’ We’ll play through him some, so there will be a period where we have to adapt. Fortunately, we’re halfway through the year. We have a lot of games to figure this out.” How will the Warriors change to fit Cousins? When Durant came to the Bay, he replaced Harrison Barnes’s role in the lineup. But this era of the Warriors has never had a center as capable as peak Cousins, and they’ll have to adjust some to fit around him. The most dramatic change to expect from the Warriors will be game speed—Golden State is currently in the top 10 in pace. “We’re gonna have to slow it down some,” Durant said in November. “That’s what makes us unique and great players on this team. We got guys that can adapt to any situation. So if we gotta slow it down for a quarter and throw it to DeMarcus and let him work and move off of him and play off of him, then why not? All of us can do it.” The five-spot has been an annual afterthought. (RIP, Andrew Bogut, Zaza Pachulia, Festus Ezeli, and JaVale McGee.) Kerr is fielding two of the greatest shooters and one of the greatest scorers in history in Curry, Thompson, and Durant. Because of this, an insignificant amount of their possessions end with a big. Kerr doesn’t need a center to be hyperinvolved as a scorer; he needs spacing and passing. Cousins can do both of those things, but his presence will require some adjustment. How much will Cousins play? Kerr told reporters that Cousins will start on Friday, but hasn’t specified a minutes limit. “Everything’s on the table. We have to figure out what the rotations will look like, how many minutes he can play,” Kerr said. “We’ll have to play around with the minutes, the combinations, the sets.” What are the concerns around Cousins? Health is the most looming question. Achilles tears can ruin careers (Chauncey Billups and Anderson Varejao come to mind), especially for someone Boogie’s size. He may never return to the Cousins of old, and even if he does, it likely won’t happen overnight. How in shape he is will also determine how playable he is, especially considering the other Warriors could’ve run laps around him even before the injury. A clear counterattack for other teams would be using Golden State’s OG medicine against them: Go small. Match Cousins against someone more limber and agile than the average center. Cousins has a spotty record as a defender, and if he’s exploitable on that end of the floor, it may not matter what he brings on offense.<doc-sep>Warriors center DeMarcus Cousins tried to get cleared to return from his torn left Achilles tendon a few weeks ago before getting the OK to make his Golden State debut Friday night against the Clippers in L.A., according to a Yahoo Sports report. Cousins, 28, wanted to come back sooner, but the team was intent on implementing a 10-minute playing restriction, and he opted to continue his rehab so he could play more upon returning. Head coach Steve Kerr has yet to offer a minutes limit for Cousins’ debut, saying only that the four-time All-Star will start. Cousins — who was scheduled to have his final evaluation Thursday in Los Angeles — could have returned Wednesday against the Pelicans at Oracle Arena, but he opted not to because he wanted to avoid the media circus that would have come with making his Warriors debut against his former team. There is lingering animosity between the two parties after Cousins claimed that New Orleans didn’t make him an offer to stay last summer, an assertion that the Pelicans dispute. Now Playing: Video: San Francisco Chronicle “I wasn’t going to return against them,” Cousins told Yahoo Sports before Golden State’s 147-140 win Wednesday over New Orleans. “I didn’t because I didn’t want to give (the media) a story line. Straight up. You can ask (Warriors general manager Bob Myers) that. I didn’t want to give y’all a story line. That’s why (my return) is Friday.” In July, when Cousins signed a one-year, $5.3 million deal with the Warriors, he initially planned to be in Golden State’s starting lineup for the regular-season opener. However, the organization convinced him not to rush back. “It wasn’t anything where we were butting heads or having a long discussion,” Cousins said of his talks with team management about nailing down a date for his Warriors debut. “We mapped out our plans and if we all didn’t agree on it at that point, then we’d set another goal. That’s kind of what happened. And at the end of the day, it was about getting healthy and I understood that. Interactive How Curry's 3-point shooting changed the game Stephen Curry has not only led a Warriors resurgence since entering the league, he has changed the game with his long-distance shooting. “It wasn’t about rushing the process because, one, this is my first time dealing with a situation like this, so I’m going to trust the experts with this type of an injury. Two, I’ve missed enough basketball, and the last thing I wanted was to rush it, come out, injure something else and then miss more basketball and do the whole process all over again. “I’d rather get it right the first time, and that’s what we felt like we did.” Connor Letourneau is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.<doc-sep>Welp, DeMarcus Cousins is back and the Golden State Warriors have reached their final form. For the first time since 1976, five reigning All-Stars took the floor wearing the same uniform on Friday, a sight the NBA has awaited — and feared — since it was reported that Cousins would spend this season in Golden State trying to re-establish his value after an Achilles tear and create one of the most star-studded lineups in NBA history in the process. Cousins predictably didn’t see major minutes during his debut, an emphatic 112-94 win, but he at least showed enough to let everyone know he is still DeMarcus Cousins. That’s probably bad news for the rest of the NBA. DeMarcus Cousins throws it down in early minutes of Warriors debut Cousins got the start on Friday alongside Durant, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, but was the first starter to come out, which isn’t surprising considering the big man likely still has some recovering to do from what is generally considered one of the most feared injuries in basketball. Cousins got his chance to introduce the Warriors’ new look early during the team’s game against the Clippers, taking an easy feed from Kevin Durant and slamming it home for the Warriors’ first points of the night. As he came down, the big man unleashed a primal roar, likely feeling the catharsis of a year-long rehab process finally coming to and end. DeMarcus Cousins is officially back. (Getty Images) The Warriors were clearly focused on getting Cousins his first points early, feeding him whenever they got the chance during their first three possessions before sitting him after three minutes of play. How DeMarcus Cousins fared for the rest of the game Cousins’ first quarter was more of a featured cameo, but he was on the floor again to open each of the remaining three quarters and saw increased action in all of them. He quickly showed even more of what he has to bring to the Warriors, for better or worse. The 28-year-old showed his shooting touch — something his team clearly needed more of — with a three-pointer to open the Warriors’ scoring for the second quarter, but was also exploited defensively to the point that he fouled out early in the fourth quarter. As he left the game with six fouls, he received a strong ovation. Story continues Cousins finished with 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting (3-of-4 from deep), six rebounds and three assists in 15 minutes. That’s a strong line for your first game back from a devastating injury, but Cousins addressed some shortcomings in a halftime interview with NBC Sports Bay Area. . @KerithBurke caught up with Boogie after his first half as a Warrior pic.twitter.com/Q1jUJkxdLi — Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) January 19, 2019 “Felt good, it just feels good to be back on the floor,” Cousins said in an interview with NBC Sports Bay Area. “Not playing the right type of basketball right now, but outside of that, I’m having a blast.” Cousins, who seemed winded at times while playing, is clearly not 100 percent yet, but he obviously doesn’t need to be to have the entire league buzzing. More from Yahoo Sports: • Robinson: Super Bowl matchup the ticket brokers don’t want • Championship weekend: Picks against the spread • Dan Snyder’s yacht has an IMAX theater in it • Leonard Fournette, Jaguars at odds with each other<doc-sep>
OAKLAND, Calif. – Golden State Warriors center DeMarcus Cousins, who is making his season debut on Friday on the road against the Los Angeles Clippers, attempted to get cleared to return from injury a few weeks ago, league sources told Yahoo Sports. Cousins, who tore his left Achilles tendon almost a full year ago, was intent on speeding up his timeline to return, but the organization wanted to implement a 10-minute playing restriction, league sources said. Instead of working through such a tight restriction, the four-time All-Star decided to continue the rehab process in order to get his minutes increased upon returning. It is expected that Cousins’ playing time will be increased as he eases back into action. Coach Steve Kerr has not acknowledged an exact minute limit, and although Cousins has the green light to play Friday, his final evaluation will take place in Los Angeles on Thursday, sources said. “We’ve got some ideas of how we are going to use him,” Kerr said, “but there is not a substitute for actual game experience. So, we’ll put him out there and see how it goes.” Teammate Kevin Durant is viewing the situation through a cautious lens. DeMarcus Cousins laughs on the bench before Wednesday’s win over the New Orleans Pelicans. (Getty Images) “I got high expectations and am really optimistic about the situation but let’s be real, we are human beings,” Durant said. “He’s been out for a long time and for him to regain his rhythm, we are definitely going to assist him on that. It may take a couple games for us to figure it out. … I’m excited to see the process of integrating Cousins into the lineup and playing a lot of minutes. I guess he’ll be on a minute restriction. I don’t know how that works, but once he starts upping his minutes, I’m excited about that, and I think he will be in a good flow. But just relax a little bit.” Cousins, 28, suffered the injury as a member of the New Orleans Pelicans, who fell to the Warriors 147-140 on Wednesday night. With the bad blood that still lingers from Cousins’ assertion that the Pelicans never made him an offer to stay — a claim the Pelicans refute — he says he opted not to come back against his former team to avoid the media circus. Story continues “No, I wasn’t going to return against them,” Cousins told Yahoo Sports before the Warriors’ victory. “I didn’t because I didn’t’ want to give [the media] a storyline. Straight up. You can ask [general manager] Bob [Myers] that. I didn’t want to give y’all a storyline. That’s why [my return] is Friday.” When Cousins signed with the Warriors last summer, causing a league-wide panic attack, he had a goal in mind of being in the starting lineup on the first day of the regular season. He was eventually convinced by the franchise to remain patient and take his time. Regarding his return date, both sides closely collaborated on what would be best for the 6-foot-10 star out of Kentucky. “It wasn’t anything where we were butting heads or having a long discussion,” Cousins said to Yahoo Sports. “We mapped out our plans and if we all didn’t agree on it at that point, then we’d set another goal. That’s kind of what happened. And at the end of the day, it was about getting healthy and I understood that. It wasn’t about rushing the process because, one, this is my first time dealing with a situation like this, so I’m going to trust the experts with this type of an injury. Two, I’ve missed enough basketball, and the last thing I wanted was to rush it, come out, injure something else and then miss more basketball and do the whole process all over again. I’d rather get it right the first time, and that’s what we felt like we did.” Over the course of the year, Cousins said his rehabilitation assignments weren’t necessarily taxing on the body, but admitted that they took a toll mentally. “I would probably say dealing with the repetition of the rehab process was the toughest part,” Cousins told Yahoo Sports. “Coming in and doing the same thing over and over and over again and not exactly getting the results that you want right away. And having to wait for the buildup to get to the point where you’re ready for the next step.