DeMarcus Cousins Says the Tatum-Brown Debate Is Nothing New. He Lived It With Anthony Davis.

The debate over who gets to be the face of a franchise when you’ve got two stars on the same team is basically an NBA tradition at this point. DeMarcus Cousins saw it play out with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in Boston, and he’s got some thoughts on why the whole thing is mostly noise.

Cousins sat down with FanDuel’s “Run It Back” and said the constant chatter about “whose team it is” reminded him of his 2017-18 season alongside Anthony Davis in New Orleans. The way he tells it, that conversation never happened inside the Pelicans locker room. It was always an outside thing.

“Rumblings of who was the better player, whose team it was… those conversations were never held between us,” Cousins said. He thinks the media’s treatment of Tatum and Brown mirrors what he and Davis went through. Two elite players, one ball, endless speculation.

That Pelicans team was something before it all fell apart. Cousins and Davis forming a twin towers frontcourt that had the rest of the Western Conference paying attention. Davis was putting up around 28 points and 11 rebounds a night. Cousins wasn’t far behind — roughly 25 points, 13 boards, five assists. They were both starting in the All-Star Game. It was working.

Then January 2018 happened. Cousins tore his Achilles and everything shifted. That injury changed the trajectory of his career and basically killed what could have been a legitimate contender in New Orleans. The duo never got a real chance to see how far they could go together.

It’s one of those “what if” stories the NBA has a bunch of. A star big man who could shoot from outside, pass like a guard, and bully people in the post, paired with a versatile freak athlete in Davis. They bought into winning instead of worrying about who got the last shot. According to Cousins, that was never the issue.

Cousins knows what it’s like to share the spotlight

Drafted fifth overall by Sacramento in 2010, Cousins turned into one of the most skilled centers of his era. Four All-Star appearances, two All-NBA Second Team nods. He could do things at 270 pounds that most guards can’t. But the injuries stacked up after New Orleans, and his prime got cut short in a way that still stings when you think about it.

The Tatum-Brown situation in Boston has produced two championships and a lot of talk about whether they can coexist long term. Cousins is basically saying: ignore the noise. He’s been there. The only thing that mattered was whether they won. And for a brief stretch in New Orleans, it looked like they were on their way.