Marcus Cousin Was Missing Something In His Jazz Debut

Former Jazz beatwriter Ross Siler noted on Twitter Wednesday even that he was "shocked Jazz didn't have Marcus Cousin's jersey ready tonight. They're usually prepared for every contingency."

Upon seeing @outsidetheNBA's tweet earlier in the evening, I was a bit surprised too, so I did a bit of research and apparently Utah Jazz equipment manager Brian Zettler has quite a difficult job.

Apart from officially being listed as the Assistant Athletic Trainer/Equipment Manager on the team's website, Zettler also has to keep the players happy by making sure their ankles are taped, that they have clean jerseys and socks, keeping track of their random accessories (like Sundiata Gaines' arm sleeve last season) and -- apparently -- dealing with something called a "sock gremlin."

Knowing all of that (especially the scary sock gremlin part), I'm ready to forgive Zettler for not quite having a jersey ready for D-League call-up Marcus Cousin -- his uniform displayed only the number zero without any sort of nameplate -- when the 6-foot-11 center checked in on Wednesday night for the final 39.7 seconds of the first half. 

After all, the former Austin Toros center didn't even know he'd be playing for the Jazz until Tuesday afternoon following a practice in New York that was missing Paul Millsap, Andrei Kirilenko, Ronnie Price, Francisco Elson, Kyrylo Fesenko and Mehmet Okur due to various injuries. Cousin arrived in Toronto on Tuesday evening and only went through shoot-around with the team, leaving very little time for the whatever is required to make a customized jersey for a near-7-foot player.

And, in all reality, I'd rather Cousin simply not have a name on the back of his jersey as opposed to the mess that involved fellow D-League call-up Mustafa Shakur earlier this season.