EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Los Angeles Lakers center DeMarcus Cousins was scheduled for tests on Thursday amid fears that he has a torn ACL, which would be a third major injury in less than two years for the once-perennial All-Star.
Cousins got hurt in a workout in Las Vegas earlier this week, a person with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because no official diagnosis has been released publicly.
ESPN first reported that Cousins was injured.
If the fears are confirmed, Cousins would almost certainly miss much — if not all — of the coming season. And his run of amazingly bad luck, costing him a lot of games and an enormous amount of money, would continue as well.
He tore his Achilles in February 2018, a few months before he could have commanded a massive contract in free agency. He wound up signing with Golden State for the relatively low price of $5.3 million, sat out much of last season while rehabbing the Achilles, and then was sidelined again for much of the Warriors' playoff run after tearing a quad muscle.
"I've told y'all before I don't take any of this for granted," Cousins said in June, during the NBA Finals where he and the Warriors lost in six games to the Toronto Raptors. "I've seen how quick this game can be taken away from you. So every chance I get to go out there and play, I'm going to leave it on the floor."
Cousins returned to free agency this summer and settled for a $3.5 million, one-year deal with the Lakers — again, a bargain deal for someone with a resume like the one Cousins possesses. He was expected to be part of the Lakers' rotation, one that still has LeBron James plus added Anthony Davis and Danny Green this summer as part of a massive roster overhaul. Davis and Cousins were teammates in New Orleans.
Cousins has averaged 21.2 points and 10.9 rebounds over parts of nine NBA seasons with Sacramento, New Orleans and Golden State. Cousins is one of only 11 players in NBA history to average that many points and rebounds per game in a career, a list that includes two other active players — Minnesota's Karl-Anthony Towns and Philadelphia's Joel Embiid.
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