Christmas Day will come and go Tuesday without DeMarcus Cousins on the floor for the Warriors' matchup vs. LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Christmas Day game was once a hypothetical target date for Cousins' season debut, yet there is still no timetable for his return.
In an extensive interview with The Athletic's Anthony Slater, the rehabbing Warriors big man said there are good days and bad days when it comes to his progress.
"It's a lot of sore days," Cousins told The Athletic. "There are days I really ache. I do a lot of lower-body training. So there are days where my legs just feel like cement blocks and I can barely move. Then there are days where I feel like a feather on the floor."
Cousins has clearly been annoyed about the length of his rehab and the monotony of it all.
"It's been super frustrating," Boogie said. "Those drills. Constant drills. Same thing every day."
Cousins has been practicing with the Warriors throughout the season, and his teammates have noticed that he's not all of the way back yet.
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"Some days he looks like he has a motor," Shaun Livingston said about Cousins. "Some days he looks like he's got a limp. That's the hurdle ... You can tell it's frustrating. I've been there. When you can't move the way you want to move."
Despite being frustrated, Boogie has had fun playing 1-on-1 against Kevin Durant in their post-practice sessions that went viral after Boogie posterized his teammate.
"To get practice reps against that? Man," Cousins said of Durant. "We honestly started out just kidding around. It's become a lot more serious as I've gotten more healthy. But to spar against a partner like that on an everyday basis, that's as good as it gets."
[Related: Steph Curry, Kevin Durant too much for Clippers]
While the Warriors are excited for Boogie's eventual return, they know there will be an adjustment period.
"A player that good, we craft around him as well," Durant said. "It's not just, ‘Cuz, come in and do what we say!' It's both ways. We're going to help him and he's going to help us. We gotta meet each other halfway to make this thing work."
But when will that return be? Not Christmas, not Jan. 1 … Feb. 1? After the All-Star break (Feb. 21)? Later?
"It's almost 2019," one Warriors team source told Slater. "The clock's starting to tick."
