Just watching when we played Sacramento a couple weeks ago, I was reminded why I would not want that guy on the Jazz. He has to be one of the worst teammates I have ever seen. He was always complaining, yelling at the refs, and yelling at his teammates. I have had an an experience with a guy like him and for that reason I wouldn't trade a second round pick for that guy.
I had a teammate that was exactly like Cousins on the court. He was admittedly the best player on the team, individually, and had the talent to play div 1 ball (ended up playing at a JC in California I think). He was always yelling at somebody, complaining to the refs or coach, and always blaming everyone else. He never took ownership of anything he did. If he made a bad pass it was the other guys fault for "not being where he should have been." If someone missed a shot he was yelling at them for not getting him the ball. If his man beat him and scored he was yelling at everyone else for not rotating. The first few games nobody yelled back or yelled at him when he screwed up. Nobody knew how to react and play with that clown.
As the season wore on we all grew tired of him. We would start to hope for him to screw up so we could fire back at him and yell at him for screwing up. If he got beat, nobody wanted to rotate and help him out. Even if he was open, we stopped passing him the ball as much. We hoped for him to fail and didn't try to cover for his mistakes, because he wouldn't cover for ours. We weren't playing as a team and as a result we lost a lot of games despite being one of the more talented teams. Then, with 5 games left in the season, he sprained his ankle and didn't play the rest of the season. Although we lost our most talented player, we went on to win our last 5 games; two of which were against the top two teams.
My point with this story is no matter how talented Cousins is, and he is extremely talented, I do not want him anywhere near this team. I know how the rest of our team reacted to this guy and how I could see other Jazz players reacting similarly. The Jazz have amazing chemistry right now and bringing a guy like Cousins in would be detrimental to what they have built. The great thing about this team is you see everyone is out there playing for everyone else. Nobody is seeking stats or individual glory. Many have also expressed their need to improve individually and have taken ownership for their mistakes. With these guys improving the next few years, this could be a special team.
