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He played only 5 minutes... is he in Pop's doghouse?

Not really in the dog house. He is under sized and the guy fouls too much. Plus he is a liability on the offensive end unless Manu is feeding him lay ups.

It's not the doghouse. There's a lot of reason to this.

The obvious IMO is that now he's in the starting lineup, opponents concentrate on him more and made it a point to keep him off the boards, where as last year no one really cared for him much. So he's not rebounding as well as last year.

His jumper, which is supposed to complement Duncan's game, isn't working. He rarely gets that shot because we rely less on Duncan's post up. On the pick and roll, Blair doesn't have enough range to pop. He needs to roll so this jumper he's working on really hasn't had any effect yet.

Finishing is becoming a huge problem for him also. Where last year he also got blocked a lot, atleast he was taking it hard to the rim for some throwdown dunks. Anyone seen it yet this season? He's rushing shots, faking, double pumping, trying to avoid the block but it results in the same thing (blocked) or missed shot.

Since he's not doing those things well, why keep him on the floor in big games over McDyess or Bonner?

IMO his defense is the biggest liability. He's not being smart.

And all the good things he used to do great, they aren't that great nor good now, so..

Splitter should get more minutes. Yesturday, in the first 5 minutes his confidence was low.. And they should teach George Hill how to play pick and roll with him..

He's really been struggling offensively this year and to add to that Bonner and DIce have been playing great so far this year.

I'm confident he'll turn it around he's just in his sophmore slump right now. Teams are focusing in on him now and he's going to have to learn how to adjust to that.

Damn, i'm still waiting for his breakout game.

co_laper wrote:Damn, i'm still waiting for his breakout game.

I really thought that good game he had against the Warriors was going to be that game, but he's still struggling.

Blair is 5th option in the starting 5 so i think it's a bit much for any of us to expect him to put him bigger numbers, with the emergence of RJ as a legit 3rd scorer now, it's further pushed down Blair's need to step up. Also with the way Bonner has been playing, it's eating up a lot of his minutes.

Here's a good article by Jeff McDonald about Blair and Splitter's struggles so far this year.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2010/12/07/patience-a-virtue-for-splitter-blair/

Magz50 wrote:Blair is 5th option in the starting 5 so i think it's a bit much for any of us to expect him to put him bigger numbers, with the emergence of RJ as a legit 3rd scorer now, it's further pushed down Blair's need to step up. Also with the way Bonner has been playing, it's eating up a lot of his minutes.

It's not about his offense.

Nolan wrote:Here's a good article by Jeff McDonald about Blair and Splitter's struggles so far this year.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2010/12/07/patience-a-virtue-for-splitter-blair/

That was a good read, thx for the link. Blair and Splitter have been a disappointment this year. I really like Blair's rebounding though, esp on the offensive end. He's not an offensive force and probably never will be.

I'm not too worried about Splitter at this stage. How many 1st year players produce (or even get consistent minutes) as a Spur? Doesn't happen. Add that he needs to adjust to the NBA grind and that makes the learning curve that much steeper. He'll be fine. The skills are there, he needs to earn minutes to show his value. Tough to do with Bonner and Dice playing so well.

I was hoping to see longer periods of Splitter-Duncan combo before the team pull the plug on that. I thought Splitter actually showed good skills when he plays on the floor and could complement Duncan when we put a lineup that spread the floor. Like Perhaps some Duncan-Splitter-RJ-Manu-Neal lineup.

Blair's defense has been very inconsistent and I'm really hating his offense. It's not about him needing to get post ups or score more, it's about finishing. He needs to take it up stronger and stop all this pumpfakes. I get that he can't just go straight up all the time, but he also can't pumpfake it ALL the time either.

He pumpfakes more than Anthony Mason did (which was a lot). There's no "wow factor" with Blair this year, not like last year at least.

I keep thinking that he's doing well for an undersized PF/C but that's just making excuses for him. Barkley was 6'4'', Rodman 6'6" / 6'7" and look at what they were able to do. Hell, Chuck Hayes is what, 6'6" and he manages to be effective as a big.

Anti-jinx thread? He had a fantastic game vs W's last night. More of that sort of play would make me happy.

I actually analyzed DeJuan's scoring and rebounding just a day or two ago.

Early opinions of DeJuan Blair's performance this season were not favorable, with the general sentiment being that, while he was still a great pickup for the Spurs, he was over matched as a starting center. While still displaying tons of energy and an obvious enthusiasm for the game, Blair was often missing point blank shots and coming up short on rebounds. Now in December, with the Spurs still holding the best record of the league, what has changed in DeJuan's game?

For the month of November, Blair has averaged 6.06 points per game, in some games not scoring at all. 15 games were played in November while in December, only six so far have been played. However, over the course of those six games, Blair has averaged 9.8 points per game. Offensively, Blair has increased his production by nearly 4 points per game. On the rebounding side, perhaps the other, clearest stat by which DeJuan is being measured, he has likewise improved. Over the same 15 games in November, DeJuan averaged 6.5 rebounds per game. In December, that also increased to 7.8, an increase of nearly 1.5 rebounds per game.

A big question, however, is whether or not he is being more effective, or if his offensive production and rebounding rate has increased as a reaction to increased playing time. For the month of November, DeJuan averaged 18.4 minutes per game, as opposed to 22.6 in December. So while his scoring and rebounding averages are up, that seems to be a function of his minutes.

http://www.examiner.com/san-antonio-spu ... the-season

Again, I think the problem with Blair before this season really wasn't his rebounding. He's basically been averaging about the same amount as last year when it comes to that and he's getting his rebounds againts better competition opposed to last season.

The 2 biggest issue for me is that if Blair can play more consistently, he'd be a lock to get atleast 25+ minutes a night. I'm sure Pop would love to cut Dice's minutes even more or Bonner's. Luckily, Blair is showing signs of life and is starting to get better court time. Last time I checked, he was getting 18 minutes a game despite starting. He's upped it now to 22 I think but that's still 3 minutes shy of my expectation.

Offensively, he's been playing better too so I've stopped complaining. But there's been more games where he's having a hard time finishing (too many pumpfaking) and trying to avoid contact (lower FT attempts). In that sense, I'd rather Blair play like last year where he's powerful in attacking the rim. Now he's trying to be this finesse sort of finisher. Not to my liking. Certainly less highlight films.

No one is complaining much now because we're winning. It cures everything. But we don't exactly win 21 games so far because of Blair. He's not on the top of the list when it comes to why we have this record. So if we take records out and replace it with a losing streak or whatever, I would say Blair has been disappointing considering the opportunity he has right in front of him right now.

The only thing keeping Blair from getting 25-30 minutes is Dejuan Blair. No matter how well Bonner or Dice is playing. He really hasn't been consistent enough to warrant bigger minutes. He's like what Manu is in his rookie year. When he gets going, he can change a game with his defense, steals, rebounding, and energy. When he doesn't, you'll see bad things all over the place. Turnovers, dumb fouls, bad defense.