While true he was bad at start of last season... he was coming out of it and playing well before that fight.. and then just torpedoed after the fight.
He was playing average up to the fight, but not great. I think a lot of posters here have talked up the fight to be far more impactful on his season than it was. It looks like it only cost him about 5 points on the season.
Cozens point totals by month last season.
October: 7
November: 4 (fight was Nov 3) (he was on 52 points pace per 82 games played at the time of the fight)
Dec: 9
Jan: 9
Feb: 7
March: 6
April: 6
I don't see how a fight from Nov explains him getting worse in Feb/March when he had already bounced back to about average (50 point pace) in December. He finished the season with 47 points in 79 games. He was only below average for about a month due to the fight.
Look at his 2022-23 numbers:
October: 6
November: 12
Dec: 16
Jan: 9
Feb: 9
March: 10
April: 6
If we exclude the 25 games in Nov and Dec where he put up 28 points, he played at 58 point pace the rest of that season. So a little higher than 2023-24, but not a huge amount.
The outlier is his highly productive Nov/Dec of 2022, not the other 11 months excluding the fight month.