Rookie Rankings by: David Thorpe

I'm very glad I traded for both Harden and Clark in DL II. I'm pretty sure that, injuries aside, they are both going to have very productive 10+ year NBA careers.

And next year I've got Cole Aldrich, Earl Monroe, James Anderson and William Buford! :D

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Originally Posted by Knoxxx

I can see where the comments about playing heavy/slow came from. The highlights I saw, Blair stayed low and used his body to get off layups/garbage buckets around the rim. I did not see a single dunk. Then again, his game is more similar to TD where he uses his body and long wingspan rather than athleticism. The question will be how well it translates to the NBA since he is much shorter. I am concerned that a premier NBA shot blocker will nullify Blair, to what degree we shall see. This goes back to matchups though, teams without a shotblocker, Blair may kill in those games. Also I am talking offense not defense. I think Blair can board no matter the matchup.

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I think we should all give Blair a break for the first half of the season, because he's probably going to have to learn to get his shots away around the rim at the NBA level, just like Kevin Love did last season. Love was rebounding well but only shooting around 40% until January when he finally worked it out and started to be able to score as well. I think we'll witness a similar learning curve from Blair.

Kid will be a very good player, just be a little patient. :)

This list makes no sense at all.

I think Blair is just going to be motivated even more to prove the so-called experts wrong and make them regret their words. The worst thing for a rookie to hear is all the praises being trumpeted over national media.

Dejaun Summers is way too low, so is Austin Daye. This guy is ranking people based on their name not their actual production.

let them keep on hating

if blair gets starters minutes...i can see him probably leading the league in RPG and maybe steal the ROY award....

Omri Casspi got 8.0 ppg with poor 29.5 % fg and 1 spot ahead of Blair? that's makes no sense.Objectively Blair should be around no.10 on my list, a little bit better than Jordan Hill.

As a Spurs fan I don't really care about this ranking. The first 10 rookies are in bad teams or rebuild mode teams. Remember how George Hill performances last year when TP was out? For Blair Spurs is amongst Champion contenders, that makes big differences.

A little shock that he didn't make the top 20 list :)

In my books he's top 10 but I am bias.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Knoxxx

I can see where the comments about playing heavy/slow came from. The highlights I saw, Blair stayed low and used his body to get off layups/garbage buckets around the rim. I did not see a single dunk. Then again, his game is more similar to TD where he uses his body and long wingspan rather than athleticism. The question will be how well it translates to the NBA since he is much shorter. I am concerned that a premier NBA shot blocker will nullify Blair, to what degree we shall see. This goes back to matchups though, teams without a shotblocker, Blair may kill in those games. Also I am talking offense not defense. I think Blair can board no matter the matchup.

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Some of the highlights showed monster dunks, and from the game blogs I think he had some putback dunks as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Knoxxx

I can see where the comments about playing heavy/slow came from. The highlights I saw, Blair stayed low and used his body to get off layups/garbage buckets around the rim. I did not see a single dunk.

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I did.

I swear, so many of you refuse to read the pretext to these lists.

He qualified his list saying that talent plus opportunity equals overall production.

He ranked the players according to what he believes will end up being their statistics, given their team and situation and how many minutes and touches they will get. It isn't a list based on summer league or based on talent.

Some of you get all upset over a silly list that you don't even understand what it's based on.

That doesn't mean he's still not an idiot and his opinion still isn't wrong. But at least understand the nature of the list before criticizing it for things that you think he's saying.

Wow! David Thorpe is a retard!