Tag: DeJuan Blair

Svelte Blair enjoyed Russian solitude

Two months in Russia gave DeJuan Blair a lot of time to reflect about his NBA career.

Blair’s first two seasons with the Spurs have been marked with some monster scoring and rebounding games, along with the predictable defensive busts of a young player that would earn him a regular spot in Gregg Popovich’s doghouse.

But after some pointed comments shortly after the season from Popovich about Blair needing to grow up, it appears the third-year forward has taken the admonition to heart.

It led him to play briefly with the Russian team Krasnye Krylya Samara. But  any production with that team was secondary to the chance away from friends and family that provided him with a chance to reflect about his career.

“It wasn’t good being away from the NBA, but it was good to be alone,” Blair said. ”Just being over there in that environment, I thought a lot, I grew up a lot.

“I felt it was a great decision on my part. It wasn’t just about money, it was about staying in shape and getting better. I think I got something out of it.”

Blair appears noticeably thinner after a summer of extensive work. After battling his weight last season, his frame appears more like the one that enabled him to be a dominant power forward at Pittsburgh while in college.

“Over in Russia I’ve been doing a lot of push-ups and running on the court. Just trying to stay in shape,” Blair said.

But his sleeker frame has prompted several double-takes from his teammates and coaches when he arrived for training camp last week.

“I know everybody was expecting me to come back, however they were expecting me, but it’s just fun when everybody sees me and goes ‘Wo, look at DeJuan.,’ ” Blair said. “I’m just trying to turn a lot of things into muscle and become that vet that I want to be.”

Is Blair right fit as Spurs’ center?

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

For Spurs center DeJuan Blair, the toughest part about Russia wasn’t learning a new language. It wasn’t living in a foreign country, alone and further from home than he’s ever been.

It wasn’t reimagining how to play basketball, having to mold his game with the run-and-gun, everybody-shoots-it ethos of the Russian Leagues.

For Blair, the toughest part about spending two months of the NBA lockout playing for Krasnye Krylya, in the Russian metropolis of Samara, was finding suitable sustenance to feed his ample belly.

“I found a T.G.I. Fridays and a McDonald’s,” Blair said, “so I was good.”

Back in San Antonio, and somehow more svelte than when he left for Russia, Blair finds himself amid one of the most heated battles of Spurs training camp.

After watching the Spurs’ frontline get consistently manhandled by Memphis meat-eaters Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol in last April’s playoffs, coach Gregg Popovich declared the hunt for a starting big man to pair with All-Star Tim Duncan to be the team’s top personnel priority.

Though the Spurs haven’t ruled out bringing in outside reinforcements, via free agency or trade, Popovich will also audition a handful of in-house candidates.

The 22-year-old Blair, who started the first 63 games last season and averaged 8.3 points and seven rebounds, is among them. So is second-year center Tiago Splitter, the former first-round pick who struggled in search of steady playing time as a rookie.

“I hope I’ve got a bigger role this year,” Splitter said. “It’s not in my hands, it’s in the coaches’ hands, but I’m prepared.”

? Neither Blair nor Splitter spreads the floor much on offense, which could lead the Spurs — somewhat reluctantly — back to 3-point specialist Matt Bonner, who led the NBA in long-range accuracy but appears better suited to spot duty.

Popovich’s search for a starting center dovetails with his stated desire to improve the Spurs defensively. Antonio McDyess, 37, would be in the mix, if not for the expectation he will retire.

“There’s got to be enough size there,” Popovich said. “We need a (big man) that can guard. If you get one that can guard, the more that guys spread the floor, the better off you are.”

With the 35-year-old Duncan having slipped from dominating MVP levels, his new sidekick will be asked to carry a greater load than ever.

In terms of sheer size, Splitter is the most prototypical candidate on the camp roster. The 6-foot-11 former Spanish League MVP battled injuries throughout his rookie season, appearing in 60 games and starting six.

“I think I learned a lot last year,” said Splitter, who will turn 27 on New Year’s Day. “It wasn’t a waste of time. I grew a lot. This year, I’m way more ready to play than last year.”

For the 6-foot-7 Blair, Lilliputian by NBA big-man standards, size has never been an asset. Often, he can be overmatched by larger, longer frontlines.

During the lockout, Blair watched DVDs of his first two NBA seasons. He didn’t always recognize the player he saw.

“I was trying to be a robot,” Blair said. “I wasn’t playing like me.”

The natural, free-flowing — and, yes, exuberant — player he was in two college seasons at Pittsburgh rarely showed in a Spurs jersey.

“I just want to bring that DeJuan Blair back,” Blair said. “I was having fun, smiling on the court and doing a lot of things I don’t think I did the past two seasons. I think I’ll have a lot more rage like I had my last season at Pitt.”

Blair’s weight has been an issue throughout his first two pro seasons. At one point last year, he flirted with 300 pounds.

After the playoff ouster against Memphis, in which Blair did not play in Game 5 or 6, Popovich challenged him to show more “responsibility and maturity.”

“That will get him to the next level,” Popovich said. “Short of that, he’ll have a hard time.”

Blair believes two months in Russia have matured him. His slimmer waistline, achieved despite an Americanized diet overseas, shows it.

The time alone, he says, provided much food for thought.

“Just being over there in that environment, I thought a lot,” Blair said. “I grew up a lot.”

Whether a grown-up Blair is the Spurs’ answer at center remains to be seen. With two weeks and counting before the start of the season, the search continues.

Nuclear fallout for Spurs?

The entire NBA season hasn’t been canceled yet. But given the glacier-like pace of the U.S. legal system and the fact that commissioner David Stern is throwing around doomsday phrases such as “nuclear winter,” that outcome seems more probability than possibility at this point.

If the 2011-12 season does wind up being scuttled because of the labor dispute, what happens to the Spurs’ roster going forward? Express-News staff writer Jeff McDonald takes a look at the Spurs’ hypothetical 2012-13 team, which could be rendered near unrecognizable by the year off:

No Duncan?

It’s difficult to imagine the Spurs without Tim Duncan, but the possibility exists the future Hall of Famer and bedrock of four championship teams already has played his final game.

Duncan’s contract is up in July, whether there’s a season or not. In order to play in 2012-13, he’ll have to sign a new one — with the Spurs or (unthinkably) some other team.

Those close to the two-time MVP say he has been keeping himself in fighting shape for a truncated 2011-12 campaign should the lockout end soon. Beyond that, only Duncan knows whether he wants to play next season or hang up his high-tops and await the call from the Hall of Fame.

What we do know: Duncan will be 36 when the mythical 2012-13 season begins and 37 when it ends. He will hypothetically have had a year off to spend at home with his two young children. It could be awfully tempting for him to stay there.

An old Manu

Unlike Duncan, Manu Ginobili already is under contract for 2012-13. But it is difficult to predict exactly how effective the Argentine All-Star might be by then.

Ginobili will be 35 when that season begins, an age in which the decline already has set in for most NBA guards, and he’ll be coming off an Olympics appearance to boot.

At 33, Ginobili was still good enough to carry a team last season, averaging 17.4 points and earning his second career All-Star bid. By this time next year, it will be hard to imagine him as much more than a glorified role player.

Along the same lines: Tony Parker will be 30 before the 2012-13 season tips off, an age at which his production could be expected to begin to fall off. The real tragedy of the lockout for Spurs fans? It already has abridged what might have been the Big Three’s final season of elite productivity and could be poised to erase it completely.

No Dice, R.J.

If the next collective bargaining agreement includes an amnesty provision allowing teams to waive one player without incurring a salary-cap hit, you can bet Richard Jefferson probably won’t be around to start the 2012-13 season. The Spurs could jettison the underachieving small forward and slice the $10.1 million he’s owed that season from their cap number. No harm, no foul.

Though Antonio McDyess was strongly hinting at retirement at the end of last season, Spurs brass was quietly hopeful they could talk the 37-year-old center into returning for a shortened 2011-12 campaign. If this season is wiped out, forget it. McDyess remains retired.

Rookies galore

As of now, the Spurs only have eight players under contract for the 2012-13 season: Ginobili, Parker, Jefferson, Tiago Splitter, Gary Neal, Matt Bonner, DeJuan Blair and James Anderson. The rest of the roster would be rounded out predominantly with two draft classes of rookies.

The Spurs already have two first-rounders from June’s draft — forward Kawhi Leonard and point guard Cory Joseph — in lockout limbo still awaiting their NBA debut. Add to that one or two new draftees from next June’s draft, which takes place with or without a new CBA, and the Spurs will be up to Gregg Popovich’s eyeballs in rookies.

That doesn’t even take into account French point guard Nando de Colo or any of the Spurs’ other overseas projects who might be ready to jump to the NBA next summer.

No Pop?

The running joke around Spurs headquarters is that Popovich will tender his resignation papers about 30 seconds after Duncan. In recent years, however, Popovich has privately considered sticking around longer for the franchise’s transition out of the Duncan era.

It’s a noble idea, but given an entire year off, would Popovich really want to re-start his engines for another season-long grind at age 64? Maybe not, especially if Duncan is gone and Popovich is forced to rebuild around the aforementioned roster of rookies.

It isn’t difficult to envision the longest-tenured active coach in major American sports shuffling off to a vineyard somewhere — and leaving the Spurs in search of a new bench leader for the first time since 1996. Popovich, like Duncan, could simply sit back and wait for his engraved Hall of Fame invitation.