Summary
Injuries really cut Cousins's prime short, and he is now holding onto his NBA career by a thread. In the last several years, Cousins has torn his left Achilles, injured his quad, and torn his left ACL. Once a dominant post player, Cousins now feeds on put-backs and spot-up threes, as over 36% of his field goal attempts over the last two seasons have come from three-point range.

With the Clippers in 2021 Cousins had moments in the playoffs where he was able to score quickly off the bench, and he has been somewhat productive in '21-'22 filling in for the Bucks and Nuggets when they have been depleted by injuries and heath and safety protocols. Cousins can still hit open threes, and has the ability to mash smaller defenders in the post as well.

​Although injuries have sapped him of some of his offensive abilities, it's his defense that is really the problem. Cousins can no longer guard in space at all, really limiting his ability to stay on the court. However, those deficiencies matter less against second units, so Cousins can be effective in the right matchup. 

Cap Considerations
Cousins will be an unrestricted free agent with a $1.8 million cap hold and Non-Bird Rights. This means that the highest starting salary the Nuggets could offer him using the Non-Bird Exception is $3.4 million. This should be enough to retain Cousins, since he settled for the minimum in recent seasons. Alternatively, the Nuggets could use their Mid-Level Exception to re-sign Cousins if he demands more than $3.4 million.

Other teams will have multiple ways to sign Cousins as even teams without cap space could possibly use any of the Non-Taxpayer MLE, Taxpayer MLE, Room MLE, or Bi-Annual Exception to sign him. Since he has only signed minimum contracts in recent years, it's most likely that Cousins settles for the minimum again, and may not even get fully-guaranteed offers.