1000 Percent

Yesterday morning DeJuan Blair was expected to be one of 15 players selected to be part of one of last year's 15 worst NBA teams. He was, therefor, expected to be one of the 15 highest paid rookies based on the NBA's rookie scale contracts. Throughout the lead-up to the draft he was always considered the second or third best big man available behind Blake Griffin, of course, and, arguably, Hasheem Thabeet.

Insert YouTube video of Mr. Blair dominating the taller Thabeet (number 2 pick in yesterday's draft) here:



But the draft did not go as expected for DeJuan Blair.

It went much much better than anyone expected for the Spurs.

Because of two knees that have been surgically repaired, the 15 lottery teams did not trust the long term health of Blair. Blair fell all the way through the first round, and all the way through the hands of six teams in the second round, all the way to the San Antonio Spurs at pick number 37.

It should be noted that the afore-mentioned knee surgeries took place when Blair was in High School.

Here's another good spot to show a YouTube compilation of DeJuan Blair and his surgically repaired knees dominating many people in NCAA basketball:

(Mom, Dad, and anyone else who isn't that big on aggressive rap music; you should probably mute and enjoy in silence or with something more agreeable on your itunes)


You get the basic idea. He's 6'7, so he's undersized as a Power Forward in the NBA, unless you consider his 7'2 wingspan (I'm sure 7ft Hasheem Thabeet does). He's also 270lbs, and can only really be compared physically to Ben Wallace a few years ago. So with the 37th (37th!) pick, the Spurs decided to roll the dice.

Tom Ziller at nba.fanhouse.com summed up the pick as such:

It's the vogue thing to say Blair will now proceed to destroy the NBA. But it's also the accurate thing to say. Blair will now proceed to destroy the NBA.

The following is from Blair himself (from mysanantonio.com):

“They were the one team that believed in me,” Blair said by phone late Thursday night. “Since they believed in me, I’m going to give them 1000 percent.”

So only a few days after acquiring Richard Jefferson (not covered by OddYears this week, sorry.) for Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto, and Kurt Thomas, (maybe I'll only cover every other major Spurs story, in the spirit of the Blog's name.), a move that may be the most lopsided trade this offseason ('every other' would be an improvement, actually.), the Spurs have made themselves even younger and much more atheletic, by getting the STEAL of the draft in the early second round. They get a skilled, atheletic rookie big, a top 15 talent, for a discounted 2nd round price.

How much younger, how much more atheletic did the Spurs get last night? Feels like about 1000 percent!

Bill Russell

...not goint to mess around with discussing how I sort of quit this blog for a while. Already had a post about that last year. Moving on:

As did many people on planet earth last night, I got all of Shaq's congratulatory tweets to Kobe and the rest of the Lakers. It reminded me that the Kobe v Shaq feaud's path to peace evidentally started with a conversation between Shaq and Bill Russell. I wish I could find more on the specifics of that conversation. To me it seems emblematic of the influence Russell still has on the game of basketball.

Another example, I didn't see much made of this on the National level, but this is an absolutely fascinating (if way too short) conversation between Tim Duncan and Bill Russell from earlier this year:

So short. Maybe they started making out, and this is all they can show.

But seriously, there's a pretty broad understanding about the ills of modern day professional sports. But sports are also frequently a venue for dignity, respect, and love in a world (specifically the telivised world) in which those qualities can seem terribly rare.

And now for a paid advertisement from the Griddleman:

Sutherland Beard

4 games into the season...

Gregg Popovich has an awesome Beard.

Fabricio Oberto has a regular heartbeat again.

Tony Parker has a new personal best.

The Spurs have one win.

Sticktoitiveness

The Spurs have it.

I do not.

It's not my strong suite anyway. I leave a wake of unfinished projects and abandoned ambitions as I paddle through my days.

I'm trying to get better about staying with things I start. Well, no I'm not. But I'd like to, now that I think about it. So here's something: I'll get back to work on my radical Spurs blog here.

The NBA Season is back!!

There wasn't a ton of Spurs news I missed during the off-season.

* The only free agency splash made by the Spurs was the signing of Roger Mason Jr. The following article is the most interesting thing I've read about him. It's way interesting: Only 101 reasons to like Mason (highlights: he went to a fancy schmancy middle school with Chelsea Clinton...he owns a construction company...this summer he made 101 out of 107 3 pointers in one practice session)

* The S.A. Silver Stars were swept by the Detroit Shock in the 2008 WNBA Finals. The Austin Toros also lost in the Championship last year

* Brent Barry sent a mean and hilarious text message to Fabricio Oberto. I miss Brent Barry so much. So much. He'll still be funny in Houston. Just not as funny. Or cool.

Okay, that's all I'll make myself do today. Come by often. I'm going to stick to it. Spurs-style. Odd Years, baby! 2009! Title time!

The Marvin Gaye Olympic Nike Commercial

I won't try to speak for this.
Except to say please buy Nike's shoes forever, so they will keep making commercials.

The Good Kind of Mentally Twisted

An article by Mike Monroe in yesterday's San Antonio Express News points out that George Hill has missed "nearly every shot he attempted in the three games he played in the Las Vegas Summer Pro League this week."

Coach Popovich used the term "mentally twisted," to characterize Hill's shooting slump.

But, in what seems like a diliberate flaunting of his own mad genius, Popovich thinks this is great: because Hill has shown he can defend at an NBA level, and seems to recognize the amount of work it's going to take to start putting the ball through the hoop at this level.

Lafayette Lever was a similar style of 1-2 combo guard in the 80's, and averaged 18.9 points. 8.9 rebounds and 8.0 assists one season with the Denver Nuggets, despite coming into the league without much of a shot. Laver agrees with Pop:

“I made a bet with a bunch of scouts in Orlando (at the pre-draft camp). Some of them said George wouldn’t even get drafted. I told them I was sure he’d go in the first round. I’m just as sure he’s going to be fine for the Spurs, because he’s a basketball player and he knows how to play and he competes and he defends.”

There you go. You heard it from Lafayette first.

On Wind and T. Boone Pickens

A few weeks ago I relayed what I thought was--from an ecological standpoint--an exciting story about how the AT&T Center will now be fully wind powered.

Well it turns out, once again, that the Spurs were just a little ahead of the curve. A couple days ago, My Way News ran an article about how Texas is becoming a pioneer in the use of wind energy. Utility officials just okayed a $4.9 billion plan to construct new transmission lines from the breezy plains of West Texas to other parts of the state.

West Texas is most famous as the heart of the Texas Oil Industry; but now'days the oil derricks that speckle the landscape have taller, cleaner neighbors. It's a welcome change in the landscape, if you ask me. And it's an especially promising sign of the times when a billionare oil tycoon named T. Boone Pickens is dumping resources into creating a 200,000 acre windfarm that will eventually produce enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes. Propa'.

And to follow up on the Manu Olympic Games mini-saga, it was announced yesterday that, yes, he will be on the Argentina squad after all.

I mention that, mostly because I've kind of committed to including a picture in every post here, and Manu dunking is a lot more fun than the pictures I found of T. Boone Pickens.