Seeing the voting results for the NBA's Rookie of the Year award didn't surprise me. Anyone who voted for anyone else other than Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, or Stephen Curry (in any particular order) in their top three is a dope and either:
1. A homer
2. Hasn't watched an NBA game all season
3. Subscribes to the theory that all Shaq does is dunk
Still, I wanted to see if DeJuan Blair could steal maybe a third place vote from said dope. No dice.
Still, Blair had a very impressive rookie season and I could have easily seen him putting up Pitt-like numbers had he been stuck on a bad team like some of the other players.
The thing that jumped out at me is that he played in all 82 games, which is not only pretty impressive for a rookie, but I'm sure is making GMs everywhere kick themselves after the knee injury concerns they all had (despite being very healthy throughout his two-year career at Pitt). He also averaged about 8 / 6 in only 18 minutes per game. As Duncan gets older, his minutes should increase and he really makes the most of his minutes while out there. And if you've seen him this year like I have, then you know he just continues to outhustle people.
His games this year included 27/23, 28/21, 18/11, 11/16, and 20/6 efforts.
He could be a special player.
Nice piece on Blair on ESPN, talking about his great year and of course the no ACL factor.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I actually saw that - should have thrown it in. It's early, but he's got a good chance to turn into a star.
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