DeMarcus Cousins’ Achilles tear at age 27 has many searching for answers, but it turns out that his recent workload is probably a good place to start.
A feature by Bleacher Report’s Tom Haberstroh on Sunday suggested that fatigue “likely” contributed to the New Orleans Pelicans star’s injury, citing the Cleveland Clinic and other studies that found that overuse can be a factor in Achilles injuries. Haberstroh also pointed to a particularly arduous stretch of playing time for Cousins in January that was capped by a career-high 52 minutes in an overtime win over the Chicago Bulls on Jan. 22.
Per Haberstroh:
The marathon outing may have been particularly grueling because he had been pushing his body into uncharted territory. Heading into that game, Cousins had been averaging a whopping 39.8 minutes per game in his previous 10 contests. He played in four overtimes in a nine-day span.
In sum, January was Cousins’ most taxing month of his career (in months with at least five games played)—he registered a career-high 38.3 minutes per game. Friday’s game was Cousins’ fourth in seven days.
Cousins’ 36.6 minutes per game on the season as a whole had been the highest such mark of his career. He also logged at least 34 minutes a night in each of the three seasons prior to that, so the evidence is definitely there.
While the four-time All-Star’s season is over, it does sound like he will continue to log heavy minutes for the Pelicans off the court though.
