Burgos: A Spur, a Grizzly and a Russian make up Pitt basketball alumni

The NBA season tipped off on Tuesday, and, of course, Pittsburgh was in a frenzy. OK, maybe not. A week prior, the Cleveland LeBrons and the Dallas Mavericks played a preseason game at the Pete, and the house was packed. Oh wait, no it wasn’t, but Ben Roethlisberger and Santonio Holmes were there, at least.

So with the NBA season now underway, what do basketball fans in Pittsburgh have to care about in pro-ball? Here are two things: DeJuan Blair and Sam Young. And though he was cut from the Orlando Magic’s summer league squad, we’ll get up to date on Levance Fields, too.

Though Young and Blair were both projected to go in the first round of this year’s NBA Draft, the duo ultimately fell to the second round, where they were taken in succession by Memphis and San Antonio, respectively. That means the Pitt alumni will be playing in the same division — the Southwest — in the Western Conference. They’ll meet four times in the regular season.

Although Blair, the more highly touted of the two, lost potential top-20 pick money, he joins a contender right away. He averaged 11 points and six rebounds in three preseason games, including a 17-and-10 effort against Oklahoma City.

But Blair still figures to be the fourth or fifth big man in the Spurs rotation. Obviously, San Antonio boasts Tim Duncan, the greatest power forward ever to play, but it also acquired veteran Antonio McDyess in the offseason, and it has Matt Bonner, who is coming off a career year where he shot 44 percent from 3-point land.

Blair offers the Spurs a toughness inside that they won’t get from the jump shooting of McDyess and Bonner. If he can sustain good health through the grueling 82-game schedule, Blair could average a double-double, even off the bench. The one thing to watch with Blair, however, is his knees — most experts say it was his shaky injury history that dropped Blair to round two.

In Memphis, Young joins a team in its rebuilding stages and he’ll have to fight for minutes. Young’s size and athleticism will allow him to play both shooting guard and small forward in the pros, but the Grizzlies are deep at those positions. Rudy Gay is an all-star waiting to happen at small forward. The team signed future Hall of Famer Allen Iverson in the offseason, and the Grizz opted to draft DeMarre Carroll — who has a very similar skill set and will be management’s first priority for playing time — in the first round over Young.

Moreover, Memphis’ roster is littered with young players all vying for a spot in the rotation. If Young doesn’t produce, he’ll find himself buried at the end of the bench in favor of others who also need to develop an NBA game. His preseason numbers were modest, averaging 7.6 points per game.

As for Fields, you can find him in the Russian Basketball Super League playing for Spartak St. Petersburg. He is one of just two American-born players on the current roster. The Russian league has been in existence since 1992. CSKA Moscow has won the title every year, except for 2001 and 2002. when Ural Great Perm won back-to-back crowns. The league consists of nine teams.

For now, there really is no word on how Fields will fit in playing basketball overseas or what kind of minutes he’ll see this season. If he does well, he’ll have a legitimate shot at transferring to a more prominent team in the Euro League, Europe’s top basketball association.

How Pitt’s Big Three from a year ago will fair in pro ball is yet to be determined. One thing that is certain, however, is that the world will probably never see them play together again.

It’s a shame that Fields couldn’t get a legitimate look at playing for a NBA team. He’ll need to make a lot of adjustments to his game from college to Russia. One thing he won’t have to adjust to coming from Pittsburgh: the crappy weather.