TrentTuckerForever wrote:I like the analysis. Coleman is the best historic comparison to Cousins I've seen, in terms of talent, body style and question marks. He's a very fair comparison. Scott and Johnson is maybe a stretch, but they are the same overall caliber of player. Which is why a rebuilding team like the Wolves takes Cousins.
In terms of the combination of size, talent and skill, I'd agree that Coleman is likely the closest comparison, although Cousins is bigger. The only question mark they share is weight. Coleman ended up an unmotivated bum with alcohol issues.
Cousins has his question marks, but they seem more of the Ron Artest inability to harness his emotions, on and off the court. If Coleman had played with a fire lit under his ass like Artest does (and Cousins did at Kentucky), he would have gone down as one of the better power forwards in recent memory.
Where I think the mark was badly missed was the Dennis Scott tangent. The whole bit about it not being a coincidence Scott had a better career and comparing team wins. Of course Scott played on better teams, he had Shaq as a teammate! Not to mention Penny, Nick Anderson and Horace Grant. Scott was anywhere from the 4th-6th most important player on those teams, solidly behind Shaq, Penny and Grant, debatably behind Anderson and Brian Shaw.
The one 50 win team he played on that didn't feature Shaq and Penny had Jason Kidd, Kevin Johnson, Antonio McDyess, Danny Manning, Cliff Robinson, and a young Steve Nash as a backup PG.
It may not be a coincidence that Scott played on better teams, but that has nothing to do with Scott and everything to do with his teammates.
3D did one thing well who let himself go and lost his ability to be consistently effective before he turned 30. Coleman was a guy who put up 21/11/3 with a couple blocks per game before he went off the rails. He put up 15/9/2/1 on a playoff team when he was 34 and Scott had been out of the league for two years.
If Johnson ends up being the same caliber player as Scott (which I don't think is accurate, they share two atrributes, height and a nice looking perimeter stroke, Scott was a better shooter and far more assertive in college), he'll be just as big a disappointment as Cousins would be if he ends up being the same caliber player as Coleman.