HOUSTON -- You saw it in small doses on Monday night for Team USA, but in the big picture of the life and times of DeMarcus Cousins, this sequence might demonstrate why hes such a talented player.In the middle of the second quarter of Team USAs easy 110-66 victory over Team Nigeria at the Toyota Center, there was a stretch where Cousins took over.He pulled down a rebound over Ekene Ibekwe, and the Nigerian got a little miffed at how physical Cousins was.If this were a regular-season NBA game in December, instead of the final exhibition game before Team USA heads to Rio, Cousins might have shoved Ibekwe and then jumped in his face. The reality of what this game is, an exhibition, gave Cousins pause and a certain calmness. He just smirked when Ibekwe shoved his arm down a little.No problem, because Cousins just kept playing, and on the next possession, he took the ball on the wing, drawing the defense toward him -- and then sent a pass to the corner, where DeMar DeRozan was waiting.DeRozan took the pass and stormed to the basket for a left-handed dunk from the baseline. This was Cousins showing his skills. When the night was over, Cousins had 10 points, five rebounds and a game-high plus-34 on the plus/minus column of the box score.Ive coached him before, and he knows international competition, Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said. I thought he played really well, and he has played well; he ran well and he really defended well on the perimeter. Its something unusual for those big guys to be on the perimeter like that; theyre adjusting. And he gives us a low-post threat, and hell pass out of it too -- very unselfish.During the NBA portions of his life, Cousins is seen as someone who has problems with coaches, teammates and referees.This past season, Cousins averaged a career-high 26.9 points per game and pulled down 11.5 rebounds while shooting 45.1 percent from the field. He was second among centers in real plus/minus at 4.83. However, he led the NBA in technical fouls for the third time in the last four seasons with 17. Cousins temperament can be the biggest distraction to the truth of how good of a player he can be.The next month might be beneficial for Cousins as an opportunity to show the international world just how good of a player and person he is.It goes with whatever storyline is going on at the time -- if its negative, then its negative, Cousins told ESPN. Then if the story is going to be positive and then Im a great guy, I can only control what I can control. I know who I am as a person and thats all that really matters.When several American players -- including Russell Westbrook, James Harden and LeBron James -- were backing out of the Olympic Games to rest their bodies, Cousins raised his hand. He also dealt with health issues this past season, but he wanted to play on the international stage again. In 2014, he was part of the U.S. national teams FIBA World Cup championship team.The only stir Cousins has caused this offseason was questioning the Sacramento Kings draft. Cousins told The Undefeateds Marc Spears he was in hot-sculpting class the night of the draft. Whatever you believe, maybe these Olympic Games will bring more positivity from Cousins.I love the game, he said. I think thats obvious, and Im very passionate in what I do. I love my job. If I have a chance to play against some of the top talent in the world or whether its against guys around the corner, Im going to play. Kent Hrbek Jersey . 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In so many ways, the Western Bulldogs and Luke Beveridge have smashed the mould that tells us what to expect of AFL premiership teams.Beveridge entered the 2016 finals with hardly any of the KPIs that have come to be gospel in footy circles.For instance:1. The Dogs did not have enough experience, so it seemed. The team that won the preliminary and grand finals averaged 81 games per player, a ridiculously low number. Outside of the crusty veterans, Matthew Boyd and Dale Morris, and a 176-game player in Liam Picken, they were callow youth, with nine players having logged fewer than 50 games. Hawthorn in 2015 had players averaging 167 games.You needed to delve back to Adelaides 1997 outfit to find a less-experienced premiership team, the Crows coming in at 73 games per player. This explains why the Dogs were so nervous on grand final day. Or not!2. Beveridges team came from seventh place, which we know is unheard of. In the 23 years the AFL has had a top-eight finals system, no one has done it from there, or even reached the grand final before. Since the current finals configuration was adopted in 2000, the Bulldogs are the first to win from outside the top four. The reasons for that are simple: it requires winning four finals (and in the Bulldogs case, two of them interstate). The only previous team to win four finals, Adelaide in 1997, did it under the previous finals system.The conventional wisdom, spouted year-after-year, is that you have to finish top-four to win the flag. Its just been blown out of the water.3. The Bulldogs are not a high-scoring team. In the era of Alastair Clarksons Hawthorn, and following on from Bomber Thompsons Geelong, it has been accepted thought that you needed to be a heavy-scorer, probably in the top-four rankings, to win a flag. Hawthorn in their three consecutive flags, were No.1 every time. Fox Footys much-hyped premiership standard suggests a premiership team needs to score at least 100 points a game and concede fewer than 86 points, for example.But in the regular season, the Bulldogs were 12th in scoring with an average of 86 points per game. It is the lowest scoring rank of a premiership team since Paul Roos remarkably strong 2005 Sydney team, which defended so well and was 14th in points-for that season, eventually winning a premiership with eight goals on a picture-perfect afternoon.The key here is that when it counted, and when they plaayed their best footy, the Dogs found a way to score an extra two goals a game in the finals: from the regular-season average of 84 points to 96 points.dddddddddddd They conjured 14, 16, 13 and 13 goals in the big games, and continued to defend at the same rate (73 points per match). They did enough, albeit with an unconventional forward set-up with only one genuine tall (Tom Boyd), and with the seasons top goalkicker, Jake Stringer, having a stinker on grand final day.4. They did not spend big. Aside from the front-ended Tom Boyd contract, the Bulldogs have bucked the trend with football department spending, too. According to reports this week, they will be the first team in many years to win a flag without being in the top handful of clubs for football department spending, which counts player wages as well as coaching and other football costs. Beveridge has worked a miracle in this sense, for the whole point of the recently-introduced tax on this spending was based on the premise that the wealthy clubs were getting a clear advantage. So much for that theory.The lesson from all this? It is that there is hope. The Bulldogs were 14th in 2014, a short two years ago, which shows that with good coaching (and Beveridge has just written himself a ticket to years in this job), excellent recruiting (Simon Dalrymple and list manager Jason McCartney might be excused for the odd head-wobble this week) and smart development, a team can make quick strides.Fifteen of the 22 players who took the field on Saturday were taken after pick No.30 in the draft - an astonishing return on a modest investment. In the overall scheme of things at Whitten Oval, Dalrymple, the recruiting chief, has proved himself almost as valuable as the coach. Almost.All of these factors trump the idea that extracting early picks in the draft, which is fluky at best, are the key to improvement. Rather, the Bulldogs found organic growth from existing players like Picken, perhaps the most improved player in the competition and certainly the player of the finals, and from Jason Johannisen, a rookie. And, of course, they nailed the picks that they had Not to mention the great intangible of sports the world wide ... they had self-belief and it was never, ever shaken.Why not us? Why not, indeed. ' ' '