NEW ORLEANS – The celebration was out in the streets, a few blocks away, up Canal Street, where revelers jumped and stretched out their hands to catch beads and other plastic trinkets from people inside Dr. Suess-themed parade floats. Mardi Gras is one day, but people come to this town and party for several weeks in anticipation. After adding DeMarcus Cousins earlier this week, the New Orleans Pelicans tried to weave in the franchise’s most significant trade acquisition with the bacchanalia by posting a sign outside Smoothie King Arena that read, “Let’s Boogie.”

But inside the arena, there was little to cheer after Cousins’ initial introduction and a few highlights sprinkled throughout the first half of the Pelicans’ 129-99 shellacking by the Houston Rockets. Having grown up two hours away in Mobile, Ala. – which he will proudly and quickly tell you is the original home of Mardi Gras – Cousins was familiar with the excitement outside. And having spent the first six-plus seasons of his career in Sacramento, Cousins is also accustomed to losing.

Cousins wasn’t under any delusion that he was going to come to a team that struggled to win with Anthony Davis and immediately solve all of its problems. The Pelicans used what little assets they had to get Cousins, meaning there is little remaining to surround the most intriguing big-man pairing in nearly two decades.

“We can’t go in thinking we’re just an amazing team. We have to go in and play hard,” Cousins said after he and Davis combined for 56 points, 23 rebounds and six blocked shots in their debut, “because right now, we’re still a bad team.”

DeMarcus Cousins is ready to make a playoff push with Anthony Davis. (Getty Images) More

So many aspects of Cousins’ stunning trade from Sacramento contributed to make him somewhat of a sympathetic figure – that it came after Kings general manager Vlade Divac came to his house to let him know that he wouldn’t be moved, that Cousins believed he was going to sign a designated player maximum extension worth more than $200 million in the summer but is now no longer eligible. But the often overlooked part is that while he joined his first in-his-prime All-Star teammate, the trade also sent Cousins to one of the few teams below the Kings in the standings, making his quest to end a career-long postseason drought that much more difficult.

“We’re not ready,” Cousins said with a chuckle while explaining what he learned about his team after it got buried under 20 3-point bombs by the Rockets, the third-best team in the Western Conference. “At the All-Star break, most teams have an identity. And it’s very rare that you add a piece as big as we’ve done. It’s not like you’re sending in role players to come in and shoot, or a guy to come in and be a defender. The dynamic of this move is going to change the whole dynamic of the team. So, it’s going to take time.”

The perennial dysfunction of the Kings always led to debates about which side was holding back the other – player or franchise. Cousins made his mistakes, and has no doubt spent some time over the past few days contemplating what he could’ve done differently to avoid getting traded. New Orleans has also had its struggles as a franchise, but Cousins realizes that he is no longer shielded by the ineptitude of his previous employer. Cousins will have to answer for the failings in his current locale.

“I look at this fresh start as a new opportunity,” Cousins told The Vertical. “I can now separate myself from the Sacramento Kings. I’m my own man once again. And what I bring here is basically what I go by, from now on. It’s on myself and the team. It can be a similar situation – or we can make things work and make it something special.”

Oddly enough, Cousins said he wasn’t overcome with emotion and didn’t feel any awkward moments as he prepared for his first game with a new team. Perhaps because the Pelicans swapped out their usual red, navy and gold uniforms to wear Mardi Gras uniforms in that familiar purple hue of the Kings – “It won’t go away,” Cousins told The Vertical with a laugh. Maybe because it felt like another road game or he already was used to being in the arena – and the home locker room – after spending All-Star Weekend in the same place, it all seemed normal. Visits to New Orleans generally required a heavy ticket demand, but Cousins is already learning to say no to those expecting more of the same. Cousins only needed 10 tickets for his semi-homecoming.

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