Should you toss a shoe that’s on the court? Golden State star decided he should.
What is it about basketball shoes becoming involved in brouhahas these days?
First we had the big Zion Williamson controversy, when the Duke star suffered a Nike shoe blowout 36 seconds into the North Carolina game last week and due to the resulting knee injury hasn’t played since.
Then, in a less serious way, we had the “’DeMarcus Cousins Shoe Toss” on Monday night in the fourth quarter of Golden State’s 121-110 win over the Charlotte Hornets.
When the Hornets’ Jeremy Lamb stepped out of his shoe around the free-throw line while Charlotte was on offense, no one other than Lamb noticed for a second or two. Then Cousins did.
And, while the ball was still in play, the player they call “Boogie” grabbed Lamb’s shoe and fired it off the court — directly toward former Carolina Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis, a big basketball fan who always sits in the front row of Hornets’ games. Davis caught Lamb’s shoe like it was a Blake Bortles pass. TD becomes a free agent looking for another job, and that display of hand-eye coordination won’t hurt his stock.
Launching the shoe resulted in Cousins getting a technical foul he protested vociferously. He later expressed his extreme displeasure to the media at getting T-ed up for his toss.
Growled Cousins: “Next time, you know, I’ll just step on the shoe and … roll my ankle. Break it. Tear an Achilles. … Just leave it out there next time. I guess that’s what they want.”
The toss didn’t affect the result. Golden State had a 15-point lead at the time, with 5:02 left in the fourth quarter. Lamb retrieved his shoe and kept playing, as did Cousins, who had a 24-point, 11-rebound game on a night when the Warriors just played OK and still never seemed in danger of losing.
Steph Curry, playing for the second time in eight days in the city where he grew up, once again had a poor game shooting the ball. Curry scored 16 points, almost 13 below his season average. He shot 4-for-14 from three-point range and 5-for-18 overall in front of a sellout crowd of 19,419, many of whom were there to see him.
“It’s never easy coming back to your hometown, especially for Steph,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “He’s like the mayor here.”
You obviously want to shoot the lights out when you’re here because it’s my one time coming here (for a regular-season game),” Curry said. “From the (NBA) All-Star Game to this, I’m like a collective 8-for-31 or something like that from three. So, not great.”
Steph was exactly right about the stats; he shot badly in the All-Star Game as well. But it didn’t matter. Unless it’s one of those nights where Kemba Walker is going to score 40, Golden State (43-17) is simply too good for the Hornets (28-32).
Curry did get a laugh out of Cousins’ T, though.
Said Curry of Cousins’ shoe toss: “He’s got to be a little more delicate throwing it to the sideline. … He’s too strong.”
I thought Cousins was dead right in this case and shouldn’t have been punished at all. He didn’t throw the shoe in anger — he was just trying to get it out of the way. If he had been nearer the sideline, it would have been the proverbial shoe drop, not the shoe toss. Official Brian Forte T-ed him up anyway.
“It was sitting in the middle of the floor!” said the Warriors’ Draymond Green, referring to Lamb’s shoe. “I don’t know. We have all these rules for player safety — you can barely contest a shot without drawing a foul. And there’s a shoe sitting there. Kind of crazy.” (Green would immediately praise Forte for a lot of “spot-on” calls throughout the rest of the game, though — the sort of kind words that NBA players rarely offer to officials. That was another unusual thing about the night).
Cousins did understand the situation was humorous.
When told Curry said he should have thrown Lamb’s shoe more delicately, Cousins said: “I don’t know, man. He (Lamb) didn’t have an insole in his shoe, so it kind of messed with the weight.”
Cousins’ play was the talk of the Warriors’ locker room after the game. He has had an off season by his standards in part due to the lingering effects of an Achilles injury, and even Monday night he had all sorts of trouble chasing around the Hornets’ Cody Zeller (28 points, 13-for-14 shooting). But Cousins also can be great.
Said Kerr: “He’s just an unbelievably skilled big man, and sooner or later that talent takes over. … This was the happiest he’s looked.”
Except for when he threw the shoe.
This story was originally published February 26, 2019 at 7:01 AM.
