Tag: DeJuan Blair

Spurs’ Blair mulls deal with Russia

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

DeJuan Blair could become the next and most prominent Spurs player to take his talents overseas during the NBA lockout.

Blair, who started 65 games at center for the Spurs last season, has an offer on the table from the Russian team Krasnye Krylya, his agent, Happy Walters, said Wednesday. All it is awaiting is Blair’s signature.

“If he signs it, then he’ll go,” Walters said. “The ball’s in our court.”

Should Blair opt to head to Russia, he would have some company abroad.

So far, 32 players who ended the 2010-11 season on an NBA roster have signed deals overseas. Among them are Spurs swingman Danny Green (Slovenia) and third-string point guard Chris Quinn (Russia).

According to the French publication Le Progres, All-Star point guard Tony Parker will join ASVEL, the French League team he co-owns, by mid-October if the lockout is still in progress.

Like all players with existing NBA contracts who aim to spend the lockout abroad, Blair’s deal in Russia would contain an out clause allowing him to return to the Spurs once the labor impasse is resolved.

Blair, 22, is under contract with the Spurs for the next two seasons at a total of $2.04 million, though only $500,000 of that figure is guaranteed. Blair would obtain insurance protecting his NBA contract against injury should he decide to play overseas, his agent said.

Walters said he expects Blair’s decision to come before the end of the week. If he accepts, Blair would leave for Samara — the sixth-largest city in Russia and Krasnye Krylya’s home base — next week.

With the lockout lumbering into its third month, any bit of on-court work would be welcome for Blair. Admitting a weakness for Whataburger, the 6-foot-7 Blair struggled with his weight last season, his second in the NBA, approaching 300 pounds at one point.

Blair averaged a career-best 8.3 points and seven rebounds but late in the season relinquished his starting job to Antonio McDyess, as coach Gregg Popovich chose to favor experience heading into the playoffs.

With the NBA locked out, and few other good options to play professional-level games, Walters views Russia as a good career-building move for Blair.

“He’s a young guy who wants to play,” Walters said. “It’s a way for him to stay in great shape, and at the same time get better. You’re not going to play 30 minutes a night and not get better.”

Could more of Blair’s ‘Trust Issues’ get owners to end their lockout?

As a singer, Spurs forward DeJuan Blair is a heck of a rebounder.

In a performance that makes Tony Parker’s short-lived career as a French rap artist seem worthy of a Grammy, Blair is spending his time away from basketball this summer working on his rapping/singing.

But after painfully listening to one of his first releases, the 22-year-old Blair might consider talking to Delonte West about working at the Home Depot instead of a follow-up to his latest musical effort.

Blair has released .” It’s a gloomy song riddled with profanity, binge drinking references, racist and sexist remarks (severe warning for extreme profanity) that no Spurs player has ever embraced. It’s a stark contrast from the professionalism we’ve seen from the franchise in the Tim Duncan/David Robinson era.

Maybe Blair is bored. Or maybe he does think he might have a career in music.

But after listening to Blair’s “singing,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich’s words about him after the season seem especially prescient now.

Blair started quickly last season in his second season with the team , but ballooned to more than 300 pounds midway through the season before he lost some of the weight late in the season by cutting fast food from his diet.

After the season, Popovich challenged Blair again in comments he made to Spurs beat writer Jeff McDonald after the Spurs’ first-round upset series loss to Memphis. Blair failed to play in either of the final two games of the series.

Popovich said that Blair’s career with the team doesn’t depend on “working on his jumper or developing a jump hook. It’s not defense.”

“It’s personal discipline, responsibility and maturity,” Popovich told McDonald. “That will get him to the next level. Short of that, he’ll have a hard time.”

His musical careeer assuredly isn’t a good way to get into Popovich’s good graces or to develop maturity during the lockout.

Trust me about Popovich’s “Trust Issues” on this one.

Evaluating Splitter: An anniversary still in the making

A year ago today, the Spurs made up major ground in their quest to match the height and length of the Los Angeles Lakers. They added a player who could, conceivably, help tilt the balance of power back their direction in the West.

Conventional wisdom can sometimes seem foolish in hindsight.

On July 12, 2011, after three years of waiting on their erstwhile No. 1 draft pick to finish out commitments in Spain, the Spurs signed big man Tiago Splitter — the nearly 7-foot Brazilian who, if press clippings at the time were to believed, could leap the Christ the Redeemer statue in a single bound.

One rival NBA executive at the time gushed Splitter was “the perfect player” for the Spurs. He had been the best big in Europe the season before, having led his Spanish League team to a championship and earning MVP honors en route.

He was the perfect complement for Tim Duncan, not quite reaching the Twin Towers apex the latter had enjoyed with David Robinson, but a decent enough facsimile to get people excited.

Splitter was the Spurs’ present and future all rolled into one. Some people, , compared Splitter’s arrival in San Antonio with LeBron James’ more heralded landing in Miami a few days earlier.

So what happened?

Splitter appeared in just 60 games, averaging 4.6 points and 3.4 rebounds. Contrary to preseason predictions, he wasn’t one of the best rookies in the NBA. He wasn’t even the best rookie on his own team, an honor seized by undrafted guard Gary Neal.

Was Splitter’s rookie season a bust? It depends upon how one defines the word. Certainly, he didn’t live up to lofty expectations which, despite Gregg Popovich’s attempts to tamp them down, had three years to bubble to too-lofty heights.

Injuries were clearly an impediment to Splitter catching on. Worn down from several seasons of year-round basketball, Splitter strained a muscle in his  foot the second day of his first NBA training camp. He’d miss the entire preseason and eventually the first two games of the regular season as well.

In a way, Splitter never did catch up. Popovich limited the big man to spot duty for much of the season. At key moments when Splitter seemed poised to gain a greater foothold in the rotation, injuries would set him back again. Throw in the fact that the Spurs were en route to 61 victories with DeJuan Blair and then Antonio McDyess playing next to Duncan, and Popovich seemed hesitant to mess with a good thing.

It is among the more surprising aspects of the Spurs’ season that they were able to notch the best record in the Western Conference — better than the two-time champion Lakers or eventual champion Dallas Mavericks — while the player purported to be the biggest addition of their offseason barely registered a ripple.

Not all of this is Splitter’s fault.

When Splitter did play, he generally proved to be as advertised — or at least how Popovich tried to advertise him, before expectations spun out of control. He was a blue-collar guy, a hard-hat and lunch-pail and punch the time clock guy. Not a star. He was never supposed to be.

By the time the playoffs dawned, Splitter found himself where many Spurs rookies do — superglued to the end of the bench, watching, even as the bigger, stronger Memphis Grizzlies pushed around his team’s front line. When he finally made his playoff debut, in Game 4 with the Spurs in a 2-1 hole, Splitter logged 10 points and nine rebounds in 21 minutes.

What does the future hold for Splitter? The Spurs still harbor high hopes. Popovich laid more expectations at Splitter’s feet than he ever had before, calling the Brazilian big man the Spurs’ “linchpin of the future” and a “stalwart going forward.”

As his No. 1 offseason personnel goal, Popovich cited the need to find a better defensive complement for Duncan in the front court, a role that could go to Splitter. He will still be a hard-hat and lunch-pail guy, but perhaps allowed to punch his time card a little more regularly in season two.

Most new additions to the Spurs’ program famously fare better in their second year than their first, though the ongoing lockout and potential for a truncated training camp might mitigate that effect this time around.

Whatever happens, decision-makers in the Spurs’ organizations seem to believe Splitter can live up to the promise of last summer. Even if that promise arrives year behind schedule.