Biased Against Boogie?: Why DeMarcus Cousins gets so many foul calls

How many NBA players can say that they have been ejected with under three minutes of playing time? Probably not many, but Houston Rockets center and former all-star DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins certainly can. This season, Boogie has been ejected twice while only playing in 8 games. In his second ejection, three games after the three-minute one, he played just over 8 minutes.

In past years, injuries have plagued Cousins; due to his nearly consecutive three leg injuries, Cousins has played few games in the last three seasons. Today, Boogie Cousins is only a fragment of his former self, yet parts of his game remain like his temper and his intensity, which lead to the many fouls he has earned throughout his career.

Cousins commonly lets a single call dictate his whole game. Once he receives a call he disagrees with, he becomes irritated and argues with the refs, earning himself technical fouls and a poor reputation.

Jonathan Wasserman, an NBA scout, wrote in Cousins’ pre-draft analysis in 2010 that “Cousins’ lack of maturity and mental focus is evident in his negative body language and lack of composure.” Wasserman also noted that Cousins becomes “disinterested” or “frustrated” when given a bad call. Both of these statements still apply to this day, and his “lack of maturity” and frustration lead him to act on his anger without thinking, resulting in dozens of technical fouls.

On January 4th, during a matchup between the Houston Rockets and the Dallas Mavericks, Boogie—while breaking up a fight between friend and teammate John Wall and Mavericks center Willie Cauley-Stein—pushed Cauley-Stein away in annoyance. This unnecessary action earned him his first technical foul of the game. Minutes later, Cousins complained about not receiving a foul call after making a layup and was ejected after only two minutes and 53 seconds of playing time for “an overt gesture directed at an official in resentment of a non-call.” Although the first technical was a reasonable call, the second was for something that players seem to do all the time and might have been due to his on-court reputation.

Players such as Ron Artest, Rasheed Wallace, Kevin Garnett, Dennis Rodman, and Draymond Green are notorious for their aggressiveness and hustle. Like Boogie, the intensity they brought to every game often led to fights, technicals, and ejections. Eventually, refs began to view these players as detrimental to the game and develop a prejudice against them. For example, in the 2000 Western Conference Finals, Rasheed Wallace was ejected simply for staring at a ref. Calls like these are ridiculous and show that refs assume specific players always have malicious intentions.

Although Cousins did not deserve some of the calls against him, many of them were rational. During his rookie season, Cousins recorded 332 personal fouls and 4.1 per game—leading all players in both categories— all while not being among the top 100 players in minutes per game. Next season, Boogie led in personal fouls and fouls per game again, and like the previous year, he led each statistic by a considerable margin. He also led the league in fouls per game in every season (2010-2017) he has remained healthy. All of these fouls likely were not bad calls, so Cousins needs to fix his attitude.

Throughout his collegiate and NBA careers, Cousins has consistently allowed anger to ruin his game. Cousins—who once averaged 27 PPG, 11 RPG, and 4.6 APG, as arguably the best center in the league—frequently hurt his team with his poor attitude. In a close game, when his team needs him, he occasionally can be found in the locker room, fussing over his ejection. For example,on December 8, 2017, the New Orleans Pelicans—Boogie’s team at the time—were playing the Golden State Warriors, which was the most talented team that season. Cousins was ejected with just over one minute remaining in the game for a scuffle with Kevin Durant. At the time, fellow star Anthony Davis was out with an injury, and with Cousins not on the floor, the Pelicans’ hopes of making a comeback were destroyed. Later, Cousins even tried to find Durant to fight but was stopped by security officers.

Even now as a bench player, he can benefit the Rockets, who have no real presence in the paint other than Christian Wood. While many refs are biased against Cousins, he deserves most of the calls he receives, and he needs to harness his energy to benefit his team, not hurt it.