Pretty simple. State who you feel is the biggest "steal" of this draft. These type of threads always generate good discussion and are fun to look back at down the road. For me? By far, it's DeJuan Blair to the Spurs. The concerns over his knees are overblown (never an issue up to this point) and he's already the Spurs' best big man outside of Duncan/Gooden. Gooden is a FA and may not resign, and even if he does, I promise you Blair will earn his way into their rotation.
the more i hear about jermaine taylor the more excited i get. hes got strength, quickness, leaping ability, toughness, long arms, great scoring ability, a good skill set, and a chip on his shoulder to prove himself. seem really humble too. he knows he has to prove himself and knows he will. the second coming of d-wade perhaps ...
Except Taylor was a projected early 2nd rounder, just like his draft position. Although I do like him. We surely don't have someone like him; he used to play football like Dorsey, except he can actaully shoot. Chase plays volleyball; I dunno if Morey likes 2 sport atheletes.
2nd round pick for Blair fit him just nice. His very small for his position and he does not look like he can shoot the jumper. Biggest steal for me is Sergio Llull. He looks good, he plays good and his young. Nice size, willing passer, good shooter and the best part about him is rox can stash him overseas where he can play competitive basketball for at least another year. So he be back when he is even better.
Carl Landry was not even projected to go undrafted. He is still a steal, even though we probably could have drafted him with the 54th pick(Brad Newley)! Even though he was drafted much higher than his draft projections, it doesn't him a non-steal. If Taylor is as successful as Landry, he's still a steal.
Taylor was projected by the media to be in the 2nd round, but GMs/scouts/his agent told him that he would probably go 15-30.
Blair is going to be a thorn in our side for years. You'll immediately notice this the first time we play the Spurs and Scola/Landry are unable to box him out. He's going to throw both of our guys around like ragdolls. On the glass, think Chuck Hayes with more power and bigger motor/meanside.
The spurs front office are smart. They know what they are doing and when they pick up a player, that player can player and will benefit the them a lot. After Dawson retires, Daryl Morey and the Rockets front office are becoming like the spurs. They know what player would fit well and actually play well for cheap. They just don't go for overpriced players that can't play ect....Stromile Swift
Blair is Joey Dorsey 2.0 He's not some NBA ready player. He can rebound and set picks, which is great, but he doesn't have much projection left and he is overly skilled as it is. He is a very physical, but undersized PF who has long arms and really made his name by dunking drop-off passes and cleaning up missed shots. Neither Dorsey or Blair have the ability to create their own shots, and it's the reason why neither will have long NBA careers, especially since they aren't overly great at any other aspect of the game. He compares to Hays in that neither are a threat offensively, but he compares a lot more to Dorsey, who went about the same place as Blair (what do ya know) and Dorsey couldn't even stay on our active roster ahead of Hays. Brian Cook got more PT.
I like Jordan Hill's raw attributes even though he lacks polish. If he has good work ethic, I see a lot of potential.
Blair's a big guy, but if you throw in a guys like Dorsey, Hayes and Landry on him I dought very seriously he'll be throwing any of those guys around like rag dolls. Blair weighs 277- bench press 185-18 reps, Dorsey 265-BP 185-19 reps and Landry 250-BP-21 reps. Hayes might be stronger than both Dorsey and Landry. Houston would probably be more of a thorn in Blair's side than most teams. Im not even including Artest at 260 who's probably the stongest guy on the entire team.
Those of you comparing Blair to Joey Dorsey are doing so more out of familiarity with Dorsey than you are with Blair. Especially to the poster that compared Blair's actual draft position to Dorsey's as if that somehow explains the nosedive Blair's stock took. It's really a terrible comparison. Blair is better than Dorsey in almost every facet of the game. The only reason their actual draft position was roughly the same is due to the misplaced paranoia over Blair's knees. There's a reason why Blair was a possible lottery pick, meanwhile Dorsey was mentioned as possibly going undrafted yet ultimately maxed out as a second round pick. Ignoring that disparity is really quite foolish. As is acting like Blair has no offensive game. He drastically improved his post game, footwork and productivity between his freshman and sophomore years. I remember reading a stat that he was one of the best big men in the country in terms of PPP and back-to-the-basket situations. That type of efficiency doesn't happen by accident. Plus, check out his complete ownership of Thabeet if you need evidence of him being able to get his shot off versus NBA level bigs. <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9WASWhKKQfY&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9WASWhKKQfY&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object> (Disclaimer: i'm not suggesting Blair will be some big time scorer on the NBA level. Not at all. Merely, that it's quite obvious Blair is skilled offensively and still has the upside to improve his post game and become more polished. Either way he's better than Dorsey and the comparison is garbage)
