Well if hard work and determination is all you're aiming to showcase I can point you to pretty much every single player in the NBA...
And of course everything is in the past, how am I supposed to know what he's going to do in the future? Is it in the distant distant past? Not exactly. Look I'm not out to bash the guy or anything, and I don't disagree that he's grown off the court (at least afaik, because I don't follow news about him anymore), but I don't see how (aside from his charity work) you can point to his body of work and say aha, role model! Look kids look at this player and be like him in every way!
It's funny, because half of you guys call Steph and Harden names, lots of talk about how annoying they are during the regular season. But the second it comes to Cousins it's all GO WARRIORS and role model talk. Hey, maybe Tetsu can start calling the Mavericks organisation a role model too, or maybe Porzingis, since it's all in the past.