Playing in his first NBA game in almost a year, DeMarcus Cousins had about as good a Warriors debut as anyone with Golden State could've hoped for. The numbers: 14 points in 15 minutes, 3-of-4 from 3-point range, six rebounds, three assists and, so fittingly, six fouls. Cousins' first bucket as a Warrior was a monster dunk off a pick and roll with Kevin Durant:

From that point forward, Cousins made shots. He looked fluid, strong, aggressive. He showcased the interior power Golden State hasn't had throughout this four-year run. He ran the floor, finished in transition. He made decisive passes from the post. He argued calls. He griped at refs from the bench. If he wasn't back to full Boogie, he gave us every reason to believe he will be at some point this season, if not shortly. 

And, man, is that terrible news for everyone else. 

"Honestly I didn't [expect to play that well]," Cousins said in his post-game interview with ESPN. "I told myself coming in I was going to try to go with the flow of the team and try to make all the right plays. Things kind of got going for me, I'm happy with the results."

Steve Kerr has said the Warriors will not slow their pace to accommodate Cousins, and they didn't on Friday. You can already see the potential for Cousins to have his pick of trail 3s as everyone scrambles back to match up with Golden State's other shooters. On occasion, he'll be the first down the court. When he is, this team rewards you:

Cousins knocking down 3-of-4 triples was perhaps a surprise given the first-game jitters, but that's a shot he can make at a high clip for a man his size. He shot 35 percent from 3 last season before he ruptured his Achilles. He shot 36 percent the year before that. He is going to get as many 3s as he desires on this team. On Friday, the Clippers were dropping their big men in help coverage, daring Cousins to shoot. He did.

You can already see the impossible dilemma facing defenses: Help down with your bigs, or drop them on pick and rolls to contain (or least moderately bother) Curry or Durant coming downhill, and Cousins can splash. Come out on him and the lane is open, the rim free of shot blockers for penetrators. Good luck. 

We know from watching Houston in last season's conference finals that the only chance you have to disrupt Golden State's ever-flowing offense is to switch everything. They've never had a big man who can turn those switches into laughable mismatches in the post. For that matter, the Warriors can run their offense through Cousins in the post/high post from the start, not bothering with the spacing issue that Draymond Green can present. How do you keep track of Thompson, Curry and Durant running through a maze of screens with a passer as capable as Cousins?

Look how decisive that pass was. That's a guy who hasn't played in an NBA game in almost a year, and his feel, anticipation and vision is still that on point. Earlier in the game, Cousins dropped this dime to a cutting Curry:

"He is a great passer, especially at his position," Alvin Gentry, who of course coached Cousins last season with the Pelicans, said on Wednesday before New Orleans took on Golden State. "Him and Nikola (Jokic) are probably the two best passers at that position in the league, and two of the better passers in the league, too. You will be surprised by the number of passes [Cousins] will make."

This is to say nothing of Cousins' defense, which isn't his strength, but considering the pieces around him in Golden State, it will be yet another huge asset. Last year when Cousins went down, New Orleans' defense shot near the top of the league. A league exec told me that was partly because the team was simply more committed to defense without Cousins, who didn't always, shall we say, run back with as much enthusiasm as he lagged behind arguing non-calls. He's not terribly mobile on the perimeter. He's not a shot-blocking menace. 

But here's the deal: The Warriors have Draymond, and with Cousins' size alone, Green will be more free to roam as a safety to make impromptu switches, jump passing lanes and press out hard on pick-and-roll coverage rather than having to bang around with guys bigger than him all game as a small-ball center. On Friday, the Clippers were 0-for-7 from the field when Cousins was the primary defender. 

The Warriors will still play plenty with their death lineup, which features Green at the five with Curry, Durant, Thompson and Andre Iguodala. That lineup still kills people. But there is an alternative now for particularly problematic matchups. In the Western Conference playoffs they could run into absolute behemoths like Denver's Nikola Jokic and Oklahoma City's Steven Adams -- Houston's Clint Capela and Portland's Jusuf Nurkic have already feasted on the Warriors this season with Green and Kevon Looney rotating the center minutes.

In a potential Finals matchup with Toronto, Cousins can actually be an advantage against big man Jonas Valanciunas. If Philly were to make it, Cousins can at least match Joel Embiid. Against Boston, he would force Brad Stevens to play Aron Baynes more, which isn't necessarily a bad thing given how Baynes usually plays when he gets real minutes, but for the first time in this four-year run, it will now be other teams adjusting to the Warriors' size rather than the other way around. 

Yeah, this is a problem. 

It will certainly get harder for Cousins. He had a lot of adrenaline Friday night, and he was slow on some rotations and his lateral movement on penetrators wasn't always great. He'll face tougher matchups, and moving forward, teams will attack him defensively in pick and rolls and probably won't let him stand around and take open shots on the offensive end -- since that's what he's been working on day after day as the one thing he could do in the gym with a gimp foot. He'll have to get more comfortable putting the ball on the floor as Golden State is going to ask him to operate a lot on the perimeter. 

But we're really splitting hairs here. The bottom line is this: Cousins looked terrific. After the game, Curry and Thompson doused him with water. Everyone is excited. Golden State has been on a good run, now having won seven straight, and the injection of Cousins and the challenge of proving how good they can be once he's fully integrated may have just officially cured whatever regular-season malaise the Warriors were slogging through. 

As for the rest of the league, whatever desperate hope that might've existed that either Cousins wouldn't be the same physically, or wouldn't ever really fit into what the Warriors do, feels like it's gone out the window in one game. The best team in the world, maybe even in history, just got supersized, and as a courtesy reminder, they paid about as much money for the upgrade as the Lakers did for Lance Stephenson. In that way, I suppose nothing has changed. It's still good to be the Warriors, and it's still bad to be anyone with even the faintest hope of beating them.