NBA Rumors: Best free agent every team in Northwest Division should target

Minnesota Timberwolves: DeMarcus Cousins, C

Don't look now, but the Minnesota Timberwolves are in first place in the Western Conference. Their defense has been great all season, and they currently hold opposing teams to the lowest ppg total in the NBA. The Karl-Anthony Towns/Rudy Gobert experiment seems to be working and Anthony Edwards is continuing to make his case as the league's best shooting guard.

They have very serviceable depth at the guard, forward, and wing spots which is why I chose to go with a big for this exercise, even though backup big, Naz Reid, has been having a great year off the bench. With that said, adding a passionate, bruising, veteran big off the bench for insurance wouldn't hurt.

We last saw DeMarcus Cousins play for the Denver Nuggets in 2021 and he looked great. His Per-36 minute stats consisted of, 23.1 points, 4.4 assists, 14.4 rebounds. To put that into perspective, out of his 14-year playing career, he posted the highest Per-36 minute total for rebounds per game, his 5th highest Per-36 assist per game average, and his 8th highest Per-36 minute point per game average. All of this is to say that even though "Boogie" Cousins is getting older, time is not necessarily slowing him down and factoring into his playing ability.

In addition to this, imagining the trash talk that could potentially be coming from Cousins and Edwards on any given night would be incredible to watch.