DeJuan Blair
Interestingly, the top collegian in the NBA Draft in terms of Dave Berri’s “win score” slipped all the way into the second round where the San Antonio Spurs picked Pittsburgh’s DeJuan Blair. I’m not going to say this guy’ll turn out better than Blake Griffin, but it looks to me like a real steal for San Antonio with the 37th overall pick in what was generally regarded as a weak draft. Last season the kid put up 15.7 points and 12.3 (!) rebounds on .593 FG% in 27.3 minutes per game.
I assume he went so low because at 6′7″ he’s too short to be an NBA power forward. But here’s the thing. College stats don’t project all that well into the NBA except for rebounding which is clearly the aspect of the game at which Blair excels. If you look at a high-scoring collegian, you do need to ask yourself “will this really work in the NBA?” and start worrying about the guy’s physical attributes and so forth. But it’s almost always the case that someone who’s able to grab a lot of rebounds in college can also grab a lot of rebounds in the pros even if he doesn’t look like the kind of guy who could pull it off. We’ve already seen a bunch of this kind of guy—Paul Millsap, Carl Landry, etc.—fly under the radar into the NBA and it looks to me like Blair could do it too.
48 Responses to “DeJuan Blair”
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June 27th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Blair slipped mostly because because he’s had ACL injuries to both knees and is overweight, not necessarily because of his height. That being said, I think you’re right that many teams (including my Bulls) made a monumental mistake by passing on him.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I still can’t believe the bulls passed on him with the 26th. HUGE mistake.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
On the other hand, numerous undersized PFs, successful in college using their bulk, have failed to leave a lasting mark in the NBA. Blair is closer to 6′5″ than 6′7″ and doesn’t play above the rim…at all. That’s a problem at the next level, as undersized guys like Barkley and Rodman were simply amazing leapers. Blair’s ACL history wasn’t the only reason every team in the league passed on him in the first round.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
6′6″ power forwards who can’t jump don’t tend to be that effective in the NBA. Historically rebounding in college does translate, but I think you have to consider that because there was such a dearth of good bigs in college this year Blair’s rebounding numbers could have been somewhat inflated.
But even if he can rebound, if you even look at someone like Shelden Williams, who was unathletic and 6′9″, he’s an effective rebounder but isn’t really able to stay on the floor because he sucks at everything else.
Blair was effective against Thabeet because he has a lower center of gravity, but put him against some of the better and more mobile power forwards in the NBA and they’re just going to shoot over him or go around him.
I really don’t know that his draft position was really too low relative to his potential.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
That’s not Blair – that’s Levance Fields
June 27th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I don’t know that it was a huge mistake for the Bulls (or many teams) to pass on Blair. I mean, even if Blair stays healthy, what does he project to? A marginal starting 4, or more likely a decent backup, who cleans up on the glass a lot, plays decent defense and scores on garbage cleanup?
That’s not something a lot of teams need. Specifically, the Bulls don’t particularly need that. They have guys like that. They don’t need another guy who does that. They need someone who can give them scoring at the 4, which they don’t have right now.
Blair seems like a good bet to be solid in the NBA, but that’s it. It’s something that a developing team like the Bulls don’t need, but is very valuable to an established team like the Spurs. Which is why I think the NBA favors dynasties–teams like the Spurs can take sure bets that are likely to do better than the players picked above them, because they don’t have to keep looking for the guy who will put them over the top.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
I wonder if Matt knows that’s the wrong picture.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
The guy has had his ACLs torn apart – I think that pretty much the whole explanation. Might want to publish a retraction Mr. Yglesias.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
There were reports that one team’s doctors could not find his ACL on his MRI. When you are picking in the first round, and are giving a guaranteed 3-year contract, you probably want someone who has a full complement of ligaments in his most important joints.
That said, I’m surprised he lasted several picks into the 2nd round. Definitely a good gamble for the Spurs at that point.
I don’t believe LeVance Fields was drafted. That probably was not a mistake, however.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
He doesn’t just have acl problems, he has no acl’s. After his recronstruction surgery, something went wrong and his body reabsorbed the tissue. He has no acl’s at all, which would be fine for someone who wasn’t going to be a proffesional athlete.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Dejuan Blair might be ok (I don’t really think so), but Sam Young is gonna be a very good NBA player for the Grizzlies. He carried them in the tournament. And clearly that’s Levance fields in the picture.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
@DC, neither Barkley or Rodman were “amazing leapers”; they could jump high, but not in a way that would distinguish them from their peers enough to explain their success. Rebounding is a skill, and both worked really hard at it and had a talent for it. Rodman was not only a dedicated student of the game, studying every player’s tendencies before every game to understand where ricochets were likely to go. He also had little interest in scoring, which meant that while others would move to open space to receive a pass for a shot, he would always be looking for the best rebound position. Barkley was just terrific at all aspects of the game. Now he’s just as terrific at getting his name into every conversation about 6″4″ college power forwards and how they have a shot at NBA success (even though it seldom ends up being true).
June 27th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Yes, but Barkley and Rodman posessed important intangibles – they each had two ACLs.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
What about Jon Brockman, picked 38th out of Washington? He’s 6′7″ and holds the all-time UW rebounding record, and he’s somewhere high in in PAC-10 history. I think only Bill Walton and Lew Alcindor are ahead of him or something. He’s not the best jumper, but he outworks everyone on the floor every time he’s out there. I want to believe that he can make it in the NBA (he’ll be playing beside former school-mate Spencer Hawes). Help me believe.
June 27th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Two words: Wes Unseld.
June 27th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Why would MY write this post when he obviously knows not a damn thing about what actually went on? Anyone who’d followed the draft in any capacity knew that Blair got his knees evaluated recently and just about everyone was terrified of what they found. So rather than actually know what he’s talking about, or you know, try to find out why he might have slipped, he just speculates with some nonsense about his height. In reality there was not that much concern about his height because he has a 7′2″ wingspan and so plays much taller than his actual height (which is only 6′5.25″, not 6′7″). In fact he knew so little that he just took the 2nd result from Google image search and mistakenly assumed it was Blair. Seeing him make this post from a position of near complete ignorance explains a lot about his blog actually.
June 27th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Levance M. Powers is typing.
June 27th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
exactly, a marginal starting 4 for absolutely nothing, basically a good 7th man for 1/5 the price of one on the open market, blair isn’t going to set the world on fire but he is what the bulls (among others) need, a physical 4 who can push people around inside, he dominated the supposed 2nd best player in the draft, I can’t see how he can’t do that to some degree in the nba, taj gibson will never see the floor in the nba.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
What the others said about Blair’s lack of acl’s (and MY’s alacritous ignorance); he was projected by many as a mid 1st round pick until teams were scared off by his poor medical exams.
But more generally, why is this “interesting”? Dave Berri is a charlatan and an idiot. Four of the top seven WoWers were picked in the second round, and five of seven outside the lottery. Does MY really care to make a dispositive argument that NBA gms are dumb enough to misjudge talent in such a systematic way in the draft? Care to make the case that a 2nd round pick is more likely tol become an all star than a lottery pick? Last year, Berri’s system didn’t project Rose as a top five–*top 5!*–rookie. Oops! Likewise, MY himself “thought” Beasley would be a better pick than Rose. Oops!
WoW not only excludes all physical characteistics–which are rather important for projecting nba performance–but also lack any distinction between ages. Players like Griffen, Harden, Evans, Rubio, Jennings, etc. are not only much more likely to be ready for the league due to size/athletic reasons, but they are also younger than Blair (et al.), and much more likely to develop their games further.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Where I think teams made a mistake was in overrating the players they took with their late first round picks. The facts is, most, if not all of those guys will be out of the league in a couple of years and their NBA career will consist of a lot of DNP-CDs. When you pick that low, you are lucky if the guy can become a decent 15 min. a game backup, and most of the guys don’t even achieve that. Blair, with his surgically repaired knees, scared a lot of teams and yes, he might blow out his knees and/or fail to make it in the league. But the chances that Taj Gibson will succeed in the league are really, really small too. Why not take a gamble on Blair?
June 27th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
If Blair’s healthy, he’ll be a good NBA rebounder. He’s more or less immovable and has the best hands of any big man in the tournament. I’d consider Brockman for that as well, and from what little I saw of him would take him over Blair and about half of the players in the first round.
And yeah, apparently the doctors couldn’t see Blair’s ACL on an xray or something (does that even make sense?) … I’m pretty sure this is in every single article I’ve seen on the draft that mentions Blair.
June 27th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Corliss Williamson/Kurt Rambis type game. Won’t be all that productive manning up against the Chris Andersons and Shane Battiers of the West but he’s a solid 6th man type player who will give some quality minutes and earn his points on the boards, not demand the ball so he can take horrible jump shots (cf. Larry Johnson).
With the injury questions yeah 2nd round makes plenty of sense. Good fit for the Spurs, both Parker and Ginnobli penetrate at will and draw plenty of attention on their way to the rim.
June 27th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Kenneth,
The bulls do not have back up power forwards who can clean the glass. Their starting pf (ty thomas) can’t do it, and at the end of the year their reserve pf was tim thomas, who has never, at any point in his career, been able to rebound effectively.
Skippy,
Rodman wasn’t a great leaper, but early in his career Barkley most certainly was. You might not know this if you only watched him in his last few years in pheonix or houston, but when he was at auburn and playing in philly he was a spectacular jumper. Find some clips of him when he was in his twenties and keep in mind that he is getting higher than everyone else despite actually being 6′4 (his listed height was always wrong)
All the people claiming that my bulls did not make a mistake need to keep in mind that (1) this is an incredibly weak draft class, so normal rules about what to do with a first round pick are out (most of the players picked late in this draft aren’t going to be in the league in 4 years, whether they have acls or not), (2) the bulls have an incredibly weak frontline (I don’t mean unskilled or untalented, but just physically weak. TT and Noah are stringbeans) and (3) they took Taj Gibson at 26.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
How does DeJuan Blair look like a steal to you, if you do not even know who he is or what he looks like?
Truly absurd.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
MY – I’m surprised you got through the draft, or indeed the last year as a basketball fan, without knowing Blair had big ACL problems.
Client #11 – Your point on age of draft picks is a good one. But DeJuan Blair is NOT older than most of the picks you listed. He’s only 20 years old, you silly boy.
To the rest – Blair is indeed much shorter than desired at his position, but actually has a higher standing reach than Blake Griffen by two inches. This is because his arms are preternaturally long. His is a 7′2″ wingspan. This, along with an unbelievable motor and good basketball instincts, allow him to be such a good rebounder.
As many have noted (Luke Winn, others), there hasn’t been a rebounder like him in the country for 8-9 years. His offensive rebounding rate is through the roof and his defensive rebounding rate is the same as Griffen’s. This isn’t because he’s a fat-ass, and in fact he’s shed a lot of pounds since the end of the season. This guy is simply a beast.
Brockman will be a good energy guy and occasional starter. He’s tough and smart, but there is no real comparison. Rest assured, if Blair’s bill of health was clean, he’d be off the boards by the end of the lottery. I’m surprised he passed Chicago, Cleveland (with their bizarre Congolese pick), and especially Portland three times. The Spurs have one of the best knee doctors on staff for Duncan, and I’d be surprised if Blair was anything less than an integral bench guy and maybe even starter, depending on if they sign Rasheed Wallace. Limited? Yes. Ferocious, gut-busting, balls-to-the-wall player? Of course.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
knees. sometimes it’s beyond the numbers. sometimes it’s the knees.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I too think that Blair was a steal, but OF Course a guy who rebounds like a demon a never shoots is going to score shockingly high in the berri model. One of the chief criticsms (past general suckiness stemming from a lack if understanding of basketball as it exists outside the box score) is that it systematically a massively overcredits defensive rebounds – as a measure of team success the model works ok, but when broken down into individual contribution, the rebounder gets way too much credit for the “stop”.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
I don’t mind so much that Matt missed most of the ky points in this story. I mind that fact this was something like the 2nd or 3rd most published story on the draft and Matt still got it wrong.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Good point Pooh — there’s really little point in substantively responding to anything based on Berri’s absurd system, which assigns a higher value to Dennis Rodman’s contributions to the mid-90s Chicago Bulls than to Michael Jordan’s.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
The above commenters are right that the real problem is that the guy has no ACLs. But he’s still a huge steal! He will probably get a modest 2-year contract and will probaly last at least a year or two (maybe a lot more). He played every game the last couple seasons at Pitt and had no knee problems in college. That’s a pretty good deal for a second rounder, especially in this horrid draft and a lot better value than most teams got, say, from pick #14 on. The Spurs, yet again, picked everyone’s pocket. Danny Ferry really screwed up not picking this guy up at #30.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Bulls fans, QUIT WHINING ABOUT DEJAUN BLAIR! He’s a small 6′7″, doesn’t pass, doesn’t handle the ball, doesn’t jump, doesn’t play in space. He does one thing, and one thing very well. He’s a wide-body down low.
Bulls fans, for crissakes, you have Derrick Rose and you’ve been screaming for players who can play with Rose, you’d all pitch in to buy Luol Deng a one-way ticket to anywhere on the planet because he can’t play with Rose, but you are whining about not drafting a player who can’t run the floor and whose knees will make it difficult to last an entire season playing an up tempo, running game. Do you really want Marcus Fizer 2.0?
Blair will do fine the San Antonio for one reason: they are one of the few teams left who play his style of game — walk-it up, slow it down, pound it down low. But the league is changing, it’s become a more up-tempo, guard dominatate game, that’s one of the reasons why Blair lasted until the second round.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
MattY’s biggest oopsie since his cheerleading for the Iraq War? Quite possibly.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Everyone rightly jumped on Matt for failing to say anything about knees. I’ll just note that I always thought Blair reminded me a bit too much of Robert Traylor, right down to the stories about losing weight pre-draft:
Michigan’s Traylor slims down for NBA
That said, he’d still probably go mid-first at the worst if not for the knee issues.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:04 am
well, @31, i don’t know about dajuan blair’s alleged difficulty getting up and down the floor. Pitt played right around NCAA average pace last year, and I never saw Blair getting beaten up and down the floor.
I think Blair would have been perfect for the Bulls by providing a perfect complement for Thomas and Noah by being a widebody. Naturally, Foreman, Paxson and del Negro, brilliant men that they are, decided instead to pick two mediocre, old college players instead.
Also, important to note is that a) this draft is weak; but b) players picked in that 20-30 range usually fail; those that succeed are usually marginal bench players; the josh howards and tony parkers and courtney lees of the late draft are very much the exception. so when you have a player like dajuan blair, who rebounds, scores competently and plays defense, you OUGHT to pick him. It doesn’t matter about his knees–even he’s only a contributor for two or three years, you know what? that’s pretty excellent. But no one has ever accused NBA GMs of being particularly smart.
June 28th, 2009 at 3:24 am
Blair will stick in the NBA, but not as a starter, I don’t see it. Big Baby Davis was twice the college player Blair was but is likely a lifetime backup, unless he gets traded to a pretty bad team. Undersized forwards who rebound don’t turn into stars in this league. Not unless your name is Barkley, who was a once in a lifetime player. And Dajuan Blair is no Charles Barkley.
So Blair a huge steal if he’s never more than a 7th or 8th man on a good team? I’m still skeptical, and it’s got nothing to do with the knees…
June 28th, 2009 at 3:37 am
No one said he can’t get up and down the floor. I have yet to see any evidence of him running the floor, playing in space, playing facing the basket, slashing to the basket, playing the pick and roll. I have seen lots of clips and games with him playing with his back to the basket, down low, muscling in for baskets. And he would have been a first round great pick for the Patrick Ewing Knicks or the Alonzo Mourning Heat, but not for the 2009 Bulls, Kings, Clippers, Lakers, Celtics, Knicks, all the 31 teams who passed him up because, unfortunately, Pittsburgh style of play didn’t exactly showcase his ability to run the floor. Maybe he can …
Ever hear of the issue of guaranteed first round money versus the salary cap? For your comment, I didn’t think so. I was going to make a long argument about value versus versitilty versus … but then, why bother. You have no clue what you are talking about. Yes Forman and Paxson and DelNegro may not be CAP-like wonk types, but then they are NBA executives, and you are a commenter on a blog.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:22 am
“I too think that Blair was a steal, but OF Course a guy who rebounds like a demon a never shoots is going to score shockingly high in the berri model. One of the chief criticsms (past general suckiness stemming from a lack if understanding of basketball as it exists outside the box score) is that it systematically a massively overcredits defensive rebounds – as a measure of team success the model works ok, but when broken down into individual contribution, the rebounder gets way too much credit for the “stop.”
Bingo.
Berri’s unsatisfactory model wildly overvalues rebounds, and thus loves Blair.
Matthew’s unsatisfactory understanding of hoops wildly overvalues Berri, and thus loves Blair.
——
Also worth noting that Houston has spent the past week (unsuccessfully) trying to give away Carl Landry for a low first-round pick…
June 28th, 2009 at 8:44 am
@12 “neither Barkley or Rodman were “amazing leapers”;”
Charles Barkley was a phenomenal leaper. Scouting reports on Charles always mentioned his leaping ability first. “Great leaper” “tremendous two-foot verticle,” stuff like that. And I think most scouts were in agreement, Barkley was the “quickest jumper ever,” meaning he could explode vertically to rim height before his opponents were off the ground.
I remember one scout said something like “in a league filled with the world’s greatest leapers, Barkley is the one guy who could quit today, become a triple-jumper, and win Olympic gold.”
Triple-jumping requires vertical and lateral leaping ability, so clearly Barkley had world class jumping gams.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:10 am
“And I think most scouts were in agreement, Barkley was the “quickest jumper ever,” meaning he could explode vertically to rim height before his opponents were off the ground.”
In the same vein, my guess is that what separated Rodman was the quickness of his second jump.
Rodman had the athletic ability to be a human pogo stick. The first jump wasn’t that impressive, but as long as he could tip the ball and keep it alive, he could get to his second jump quicker than the opposition.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:14 am
“Also worth noting that Houston has spent the past week (unsuccessfully) trying to give away Carl Landry for a low first-round pick…”
And let’s not forget a guy like Reggie Evans, one of the best rebounders you’ll ever see. But his lack of other productive abilities means that he’s only averaged 19mpg for his career while playing on a succession of teams that weren’t exactly loaded with talent.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:21 am
“Charles Barkley was a phenomenal leaper. Scouting reports on Charles always mentioned his leaping ability first.”
If we assume the reports that Barkley is really only 6 foot 4 1/2 inches tall are true, what he was able to accomplish in the paint really is pretty unbelievable.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:24 am
It’s a good call. Blair has stacked up favorably against the best big men in college for the past two years. Of course, this is coming from a Pitt quasi-alumna, so maybe it’s wishful thinking…
June 28th, 2009 at 9:57 am
petey
Yeah, there is a lot more to leaping ability than a running start one legged takeoff.
And Rodman was a “human pogo stick.”
June 28th, 2009 at 10:31 am
“Big Baby Davis was twice the college player Blair was but is likely a lifetime backup, unless he gets traded to a pretty bad team.”
Actually, Big Baby is one of those guys who can start for good teams but would suck on a bad one. Like Anthony Mason or Shawn Marion, he’s a good player who has some severe limitations on his game. On a bad team where he’s the focus on attention, opponents can focus on what he can’t do but he can be tremendously effective as a third or four option.
Mike
June 28th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Jon Brockman was the best rebounder in college basketball in 2008-09. If he had played at Duke (where he was offered a scholarship) instead of the University of Washington, you guys on the east coast would be raving about him.
The key to rebounding is positioning. Rebounding is a horizontal game, not vertical, and nobody does it better than Brockman. He reminds me of Wes Unseld–same size and same determination.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
one thing that is absoutey clear is that no on in thei ight mind picks a guy with blais injuy history in the fist round and gives him a guarenteed contract. so really hopow many teams assed on bair in the second round is the uestion, and the answerr is only about a handful. another undersized celtic pf is a good comparison, leon powe, whop also was twice the college payer blair is but slipped to 2nd round due to concerns about his knees which got messed up in high school….anyway, matt got owned on this thead bigtime by posting a picture of the wong guy….can we get a blog entry on whatat itz like to be such weak sauce?
June 29th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Jon Brockman is a big mobile kid, and he loves to bang into people. And floors, and staunchons, and seats, and anything else that comes between him and the ball. He doesn’t just like contact, he sees it as his raison d’etre. He reads the boards like a jedi-master, and he’s the toughest baller I’ve ever seen. He’s busted his nose about ten times in the past four years, and returned the favor about the same number of times. Even so, there’s NOTHING dirty about his game. Just hustle and muscle. Given 30 minutes a game, he’ll be a top-5 rebounder for 15 years. He’ll still be playing when everybody else in this draft is long gone.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Blair’s size is fine for the NBA at 4, because his wingspan makes up for the lack of height (he’s got a higher standing reach than Blake Griffin, and there’s plenty of precedent for successful PFs with his measurements). You could argue that the unknown character of his knees made him slip (although the risk/reward on a low first round pick still justifies it IMO), but every team who picked in front of the Spurs in the second seems crazy to me. Once you’re out of the high lottery, you’re lucky to get a rotation player. Once you’re out of the first round, you’re lucky to get someone who sticks on the team (and free of the guaranteed contract). How on Earth do the Kings, Blazers and Pistons justify their early second round picks?