There was a time when DeMarcus Cousins was one of the most feared players in the league. He was a bulldog in the paint, frequently bouncing defenders off him as if he were a human trampoline. Sometimes, his defense was suspect. But no one doubted his elite talent.

And now, no one can dispute his bad luck.

Cousins has a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, Jeff Schwartz, his agent, announced Thursday. A surgery timeline has not been decided. Schwartz did not announce when or how Cousins sustained the injury.

This is the third major injury in less than two years for Cousins, who had hoped to make a healthy debut in the coming months with the Los Angeles Lakers, a team headlined by LeBron James and Cousins’s former teammate Anthony Davis. The Lakers, badly needing depth to surround James and Davis, took a flier on Cousins in free agency this summer, giving him a one-year contract worth $3.5 million. That is a fraction of what the four-time All-Star was projected to be earning at this point in his career, but injuries have come between him and an expected payday.