Bit early...people were saying this about AB as well. So if Morey doesn't get the best player each time he makes a pick he did a bad job? Nice expectations
for such a crappy original premise, this thread has got TONS of win in it. Well done guys. :grin: Any seasoned observer of the NBA will tell you it normally takes up to three years before you get a true idea of what rookies can do, no matter where they come from or how good they were there, the NBA is a WHOLE different animal in all respects and it takes most rookies time to compensate. Sure there are a few that are talented enough to come in and make an impact immediately, but they are far and away in the minority.
I'm willing to bet Daryl offered the Spurs $3M for Blair after they drafted him and I am willing to bet that the Spurs said no.
Blair and his knees are a inevitable knock away from being out of commission. His knees have no cartilage and is just an injury waiting to happen. It is not a question of if even, but when. Why do you think EVERY OTHER TEAM passed on this guy. Sure he can ball. T-Mac could ball too. We were already stacked at the PF position and we picked up Chase who a 2nd rounder who until his injury was in contention for ROY and JT who could easily be a contributor one day.
Or the Spurs said they would give us Blair as long as we gave Scola back and apologized for stealing him in the first place.
Blair is 6'6" Why would we want yet another undersized PF? haha, he's the same height as Temple who is a PG.
Reliable spot up shooters like Bud and Kmart will work magic with Yao in the middle passing outa double teams. Jordan Hill's got trememdous potential too, and he's not a undersized PF like Carl. Remember the clank fest off wide wide open shots back in the days of Rafer? With Kmart here and Cbud developing, we'll be that inside-and-out style that brings championships.
Bud only shoots 2% better on FGs than Rafer over his career. If he was knocking down 45%+ and scoring efficiently I'd say OK, he looks like he might be an above average starter one day. But he's a jump shooter who doesn't make jumpshots at a good percentage. Pardon me if I'm not excited about another one of those.
When Dejaun Blair's knees give way because he doesn't have any ACL's, you will be happy we didn't draft him.
Seriously guy, your argument is trash. Budinger was hitting well for a large portion of the season. He has, and not unexpectedly, hit the rookie wall. As I and many other have pointed out, there are many excellent players in the league who put up much, much worse numbers in their first year than Chase has. We're not all out of our chairs screaming that he's going to be any sort of top tier player, but it's utter stupidity to say the guy is a bust after 2/3 of a season. He's shown more than enough capability on numerous occasions that we owe him time and patience to develop into a better player.
Threads like this drive me crazy, we had no 1st round draft picks and come out with Budinger in the 2nd and still someone isn't satisfied. We can't expect every player we draft to become a star. Chase could still become a star and it's way too early to tell if Taylor and Llull will pan out. If they don't I still think it's a great draft just getting Chase. If we can get just one player that can break the rotation and become a solid role player then we're gold especially when drafting mostly in the 2nd round each year. The fact we have had to pick from the 24th and on the last 3 drafts and yet still ended up with Brooks, Landry, and Budinger (and Ron if you count Green who btw is a rotation player for the kings) is ridiculously amazing. Show me a GM that's had that kind of success picking that late in the draft for 3 years in a row.
I guess this is just another example of the age old adage, Love is blind. Dont get between a man and his man-crush!
Dejuan Blair plays well and all the analysts go: how could so many teams have passed him up, these GMs must be dumb. The answer is that NBA GMs are not doctors, so when they think about drafting a guy like Blair, they turn to their team doctors and ask one simple questions: can we draft this guy? When the team doctor answers Nay, then the GM passes on the player. So don't blame Morey or the other GMs for passing on Blair, blame the team doctors for overestimating Blair's injuries.
I am sure after Spurs drafted Blair, their team Doc was like: "Um, Greg.....their is something I forgot to tell you about his knees...." You can imagine the "stare" Greg gave the team doc. :grin:
They didn't overestimate Blair's injuries. Think about it: the guy 6'6 playing as a center. He's not a defensive genius like Chuck, he's a bruising rebounder and scorer in the paint. He'll be banging with the big guys 100% of the time, how long do you think his body and knees will hold out before he suffers his major injury? The dude has no ACLs, he steps on another person's foot while jumping and he might be done. DM probably didn't like the thought of spending 3 million on a guy who might end up retiring in the next 3 years. It was a perfectly thought out decision, I'll be sure to serve JCDenton some crow three years down the road when Chase, Llull and Taylor are either contributing or traded for assets while Blair is sitting out the season due to injury. Op you're an idiot. We didn't have any drafts to begin with, and we ended up with the 8th lottery pick and 3 picks that turned into two projects and 1 rotation player. Put simply, this thread should be waived like Bryan Cook
