OT - Dejuan Blair being annoyingly good

[PapaG]

For as good as POP is he is pretty fickle if you aren't a star. Whenever Splitter was in the dog house then Blair was producing and then when Blair was in the doghouse Splitter would produce. They seem to have taken turns disappointing. I don't think he could consistently play them both.

Blair's problem is, and always has been, defense. It's why he barely cracks the rotation in the playoffs as Duncan's minutes increase, and now he's far behind Splitter in the rotation.

Truth be told, I'd much rather have Dante Cunningham back in Portland, who can actually create a shot and play a little defense, than I would Blair, who is a garbage man on offense, and other than rebounding at times, offers little value on defense.

The weird thing at the time of passing on Blair is that some people seemed to think he was some future star player that somehow slipped to the second round. I didn't think the uproar at the time was in proportion to passing on the guy.

It's not like he's Kenneth Faried...

 

[PapaG]

Players often improve at defense, but they rarely get WORSE at rebounding.

I don't think that it's at all a given that Blair cannot improve at defense through positioning and conditioning, and actually find that assertion pretty laughable.

Ed O.

Yet Blair has gone from 12.7 reb/36 in his first year to 10.2/36 in his 4th year, and his PER has sunk 3 points as well from 17 to 14.

The fact that his mpg in the playoffs literally are cut in half from his regular season numbers, and I really don't think any team missed out on him, at least in terms of being some huge part of a contending team.