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Strong and big, legitimately 6’11”, exceptionally agile with pure basketball instincts, yet not advanced to the point where he’s already at his ceiling of potential. The best rebounder in college basketball and enough all-around ability to play in the NBA immediately. Sounds like a prospect all 30 teams in the NBA could use?

The NBA has gone the way of inside/outside bigs over the past decade, but that has largely resulted out of necessity due to the shape and form its most talented big players have simply arrived and evolved.

DeMarcus Cousins is a more conventional big man and that makes him a hugely valuable commodity in the upcoming draft. He doesn’t have the Hall of Fame upside of teammate John Wall, but he is as likely to end up in the top percentile amongst his positional peers as Wall is amongst the NBA’s incredibly deep collection of point guard.

He is an extremely physical player for his age and is already both bigger and stronger than most bigs in the NBA.

The thing that Cousins does best is rebound, which always translates with great reliability to the NBA. Statistics are less than 5% of what I look at when scouting players for the Draft, but Cousins’ rebounding numbers are too impressive to ignore. He only trails DeJuan Blair’s sophomore season at Pitt in terms of offensive rebounding efficiency during this decade.

Despite being two or three younger than much of his competition, Cousins is so physically superior that it is difficult to separate where technique comes into play on the glass. Clearly, however, Cousins fights well for rebound position ahead of shot attempts in a nuanced way. His basketball acumen puts himself in favorable enough situations to let his strength, reach and quickness take over from there.

Cousins has great natural anticipatory instincts all over the floor and rebounding is the one most presently advanced.

In scoring opportunities, as on the glass, he is a bruising beast that will impose his will upon opponents. Even though Cousins does rely and capitalize on the good fortune of playing with a setup artist like Wall where he can be a power finisher on lobs, he does have a sophisticated array of offensive moves to create his own looks.

Cousins has an impressively quick first move on the drop step and soft touch around the bucket. He appears incredibly comfortable both in the low post and mid-post, which is a direct result of how well he can put the ball on the floor. He has a silky smooth up and under that he’ll use effectively in both areas.

He needs to slow down slightly sometimes when he is ready to go up for a little baby hook. He too frequently will lift when unbalanced to a point where he is unable to get vertical and he then morphs from a 6’11”, 275-pound monster into a shrunken and defendable 6’8”, 225-pounds. Continuing that point, he must remain strong with the ball when he begins feeling a help defender collapse down from the perimeter. Furthermore, Cousins is vulnerable when his own defender jams him physically in the post, but that is not uncommon for a young big.

Cousins also must improve his motor from block to block during halfcourt sets. I don’t foresee that being a long-term concern, as he grows more comfortable in a structured offense since his motor as a rebounder and in transition is outstanding.

He shoots a halfway respectable percentage from the free throw line. I really like how much lift he gets with his mid-range jumper and he keeps the ball high, though it is bit too much of a push shot and prevents him from shooting as efficiently as he is capable.

He is an active and effective screener even though John Calipari’s offense doesn’t utilize the high pick with much frequency. Cousins would be absolutely deadly as a pick and roll partner with an NBA point guard like Chris Paul or Steve Nash. He sets a humongous pick, rolls to the bucket nicely with great hands and can improvise in the lane when he doesn’t have a clear path to the rim.

During his first few seasons in the NBA, Cousins will absolutely score primarily at the rim on lobs and put-backs, but I would be surprised if he doesn’t have one of the better low post games and an occasional 15-footer (especially on the pick-and-pop) a season or two before his restricted free agency year.

He is also a gifted passer with good vision back towards the perimeter in the post and is even capable of those Kevin Love/Wes Unseld passes to a leaked out teammate near the opposite free throw line off a rebound. Cousins won’t do that high degree of difficulty pass very often, but it is at least in his arsenal. He does a good job of making routine outlet passes quickly and efficiently to trigger the break.

Not every coach will allow this, but Cousins will astutely begin subtly leaking out into transition when he isn’t in position to grab a rebound. To me, he rebounds well enough and runs the floor too extraordinarily not to trust his instincts.

Defensively, Cousins needs significant improvement but there is plenty of talent to work with. Common amongst young players with his kind of size and strength, he needs to learn how to avoid fouls. His foul rate is one of the highest in the country and he doesn’t have the block rate to match, which makes the situation even worse. He needs to not be quite so overanxious and understand that he’ll be effective in preventing buckets simply by being a big body that takes up space rather than gamble on blocks that lead to body contact and blow-bys.

His shotblocking doesn’t compare to his rebounding whatsoever, not in the league of a Cole Aldrich, let alone Hassan Whiteside, two of the clear best in the projected 2010 draft class. Cousins has very impressive lateral quickness, so he will be a better defender than both Al Jefferson and Eddy Curry, but his potential to block shots is much closer to those two than the NBA’s best.

The character issue is one that will be constantly repeated in regards to Cousins between now and the end of June and it seems to already be overblown. I am only willing to completely trust what I see on the floor instead of what I hear. He undoubtedly doesn’t have the maturity of a Blake Griffin in 2009, or Oden/Durant in 2007, but he has a great sense of the game, plays extremely hard within a team concept and is genuinely well-liked and well-respected by his teammates.

His agent of choice will be a good litmus test for some of that character. If he signs with Arn Tellem, who represents both of Calipari’s superstar freshmen at Memphis (Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans), he will be in excellent hands. I could see him joining the Leon Rose family as well, which also would be a good choice. Not necessarily a reflection on anybody in particular, but what happened with Michael Beasley initially was in some ways an indicator of what we saw during his first two NBA summers.

Ultimately in Cousins, I see a pretty decent guy who plays with a lot of emotion. I might need a longer vetting process if my future unborn daughter brought him home instead of someone like Evan Turner, but he shouldn’t have any serious problems to override his talent.