Kirschman: Blair proving to be a steal in NBA Draft

How many NBA teams look silly for passing on DeJuan Blair in the 2009 NBA draft?

Well, a lot… How many NBA teams look silly for passing on DeJuan Blair in the 2009 NBA draft?

Well, a lot more lately.

Blair recorded double-doubles in three of his last five games as a starter for the San Antonio Spurs, the team with the NBA’s best record.

Against Dallas on Jan. 14, Blair went for 18 points and 13 rebounds in 30 minutes. He followed that with 22 points and 11 rebounds in 35 minutes against Toronto.

Blair’s most impressive performance, though, came against the New York Knicks: He finished with 18 points, 13 rebounds, three blocks and four steals in 42 minutes. I’d want him on my team. How about you?

At least one other person agrees.

Following his performance against New York, Yahoo! Sports contributor Matt Savarese wrote, “Unfortunately for the Knicks, they had to look no further than inside the paint to see the type of player … that they need. DeJuan Blair was a beast.”

Blair is averaging 7.8 points and 6.8 rebounds per game in his second season. Lately, he’s been performing better than that. Yet an entire first round and part of the second round went by before a team “took a chance” on Blair. This happened for two major reasons. The first was that Blair was an undersized big man. The second was his knees.

Here’s the thing, though. Blair was a phenomenal rebounder in college and rebounding usually translates to the NBA. So teams should have been able to predict that Blair would’ve hit the boards just as well in NBA. Even if his scoring didn’t translate — which it has — he would’ve been a solid force inside as a rebounder.

But then there were his knees. I wish I had counted the number of times a draft analyst mentioned Blair’s ACL-less knees.

Blair seemed to do fine with those horrible knees as a First Team All-American in college. In my opinion, he was worth the risk. The Spurs seemed to think so too.

Let’s take a look at a few teams that passed on Blair. With the 24th pick of the draft, the Dallas Mavericks selected Ohio State freshman Byron Mullens and then immediately traded him to Oklahoma City. Mullens averaged 8.8 points and 4.7 rebounds during his only year in college. Blair was averaging 15.7 points and 12.3 rebounds when he declared for the draft.

Mullens is averaging 1.3 points and 1.6 rebounds per game for Oklahoma City. Oh, and he’s making $1,204,200 to Blair’s $918,000. One of those players proved to be a dominant force in college and is already making a name for himself in the NBA. Hint: It’s not the guy making more money.

And just for fun, let’s get a quick laugh in at Memphis’ expense. They took Hasheem Thabeet based on potential as the second overall pick. After spending some time in the NBA developmental league, the equivalent to MLB’s minor leagues, Thabeet is now averaging an imposing 1.3 points and 1.7 rebounds.

But he’s tall, so that’s always good.

Memphis also took DeMarre Carroll because of his inside ability. The last time Carroll played was Nov. 2. He scored two points and grabbed one rebound. Whoops.

Bleacher Report wrote a 2009 NBA Re-draft, which looked back at where players in that draft should’ve been taken. It put Blair ninth, going to the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors are in need of rebounding and intensity, the site writes, and Blair would’ve brought both to the floor.

Other teams that could use Blair’s rebounding and intensity? Cleveland, for one. The Cavaliers took Christian Eyenga, a guard from the Congo. The Detroit Pistons are the league’s second worst rebounding team. They could’ve had Blair — twice.

In the second round, they chose DaJuan Summers, a forward from Georgetown. He’s really helping Detroit’s rebounding stats with that 0.5 board per game.

Somewhere, Gregg Popovich is smiling.

Pitt fans are too.