I find myself pondering the question that if Sam Young had gone pro after his junior year and been drafted in the same spot he was this year, everyone would have said he made a mistake by going pro early. That he fell for some mocks and pundits that had him listed late in the first round (like he was last year).

There would have been talk about how he needed another year to refine his game further. Show he could consistently hit from the perimeter. That if he came back and led Pitt to a great season, then his stock would have risen.  Of course he did all that, and then got slammed for being a 24-year old senior.

If DeJuan Blair had stayed another year or even all four and was still subsequently drafted in the second. There would be the observation of how he was listed in the teens of the mock drafts this year and should have gone when he was hotter and had less wear on his knees. That surely he would have gone higher because teams and scouts would have had less chance to pick apart his game.

Ultimately, no matter how many whispers there are in the ear. It is still the person’s decision. I hope DeJuan Blair still takes advantage of Pitt’s policies and at some point in the future finishes his education.

Even though Sam Young was taken one spot ahead of DeJuan Blair, there is not a lot of ink about him. Part of that stems from his being a senior so there is no “should he have stayed or gone” debate. Also, his slide out of the first round was really not as precipitous. He was holding steady in the twenties, so a slide to the early second round is not nearly as vast.

Also, since Sam went into a brief seclusion away from family and Pittsburgh, there was no media to really sit with him.

The other reason stems from the team that drafted him. They had the 2nd pick of the draft so that’s where the attention goes. Finally, it is Memphis. A wasteland of a franchise so there just isn’t going to be a lot on a bad team’s second round pick.

Young, will, however use falling to the second round as motivation.

“I think I’m the type of player who can come in and give the Grizzlies some great minutes and be able to contribute right away and try and help them be a better team from last year,” Young said, adding that falling in the draft will serve as motivation. “I definitely will come out with a chip on my shoulder. I’m going to work my butt off. I always do.”

That work ethic is part of why he was drafted by the Griz according to the GM.

“These guys are tough and they can defend,” Griz general manager Chris Wallace said. “Missouri and Pitt are tough, hard-working programs. We needed to get tougher as a team. That was a big issue for us.”

Hollins said Carroll and Young will push returning franchise players Rudy Gay and O.J. Mayo to become better players.

“When we go to practice, it’s going to be a war out there,” Hollins said. “It’s going to be competitive. The more guys push each other in practice, the better we’ll be.”

Young is looking forward to it.

He played on the same AAU team with Gay years ago.

“And I played against him for the one year he was at UConn,” Young said. “I definitely have some chemistry with Rudy. I’ve seen O.J. play but never played with him. … I know Rudy. We’re definitely going to have some spirited practices.”

If Gay is still as soft as his UConn days, Young will chew him up at times.

I have to admit my bias. There are two very talented players from UConn on the team, but they were also two of the softest and incomplete players from the Huskies. One only wanted to play offense and the other defense. These are part of the cornerstone. Hard to envision success for the Griz.

I liked this summary of why Young fell to the 2nd and the stupidity of teams drafting late in the 1st.

There are nowhere near 35 better players than Sam Young in the 2009 draft class, yet somehow Young fell all the way to the Grizzlies at 36. Once word broke out that Young was 24, old by NBA rookie standards unless you’re Luis Scola, it was like all four years of his film from Pittsburgh disappeared. It’s called the senior curse because NBA teams just don’t feel like players over the age of 23 have a whole lot of improving left to do. What the teams picking in the first 35 range failed to realize is that Young is already talented and experienced enough to contribute right away. The Grizzlies got a steal in Young, who should have a solid rookie season if he can use his walker on the court.

As for DeJuan Blair, there is no doubt that he was upset and disappointed when he not only slid out of the teens but into the second round.

Blair invited members of the media to watch the draft at the Omni William Penn Hotel, but his publicist announced shortly after the first round ended that Blair would not be doing any interviews. He is expected to speak with reporters today.

That left it to his agent to put the happy face on everything late Thursday.

“I was hopeful that he would go between 15 and 25,” Walters said. “But, if you saw, teams started taking a bunch of point guards from 17 on. After that, with some of the teams that were selecting at the end of the first round, I’d rather have him go in the second round.

“There is not a better place for DeJuan than San Antonio. I’m ecstatic. San Antonio has a great history. They have great veterans to teach him the game. When San Antonio called me there was shouting in the background because they were so excited to get him.”

…

“At the end of the day, would he have liked to have gone earlier? Sure,” Walters said. “Now, he has to prove himself all over again. He is going to be so tunnel-vision focused that I feel sorry for all the guys he comes across.”

The Spurs have their summer league team in Las Vegas. Where Blair will be heading in mid-July. What a way to test that new resolve about eating. To say nothing about behaving oneself. Vegas, baby.

During the draft, as it was all going wrong for Blair, he had to get out.

Blair, who watched the draft with friends and family at a posh downtown hotel, admitted it was “eating me up inside” watching other players picked ahead of him.

At one point, he left the private suite and watched the draft from the hotel’s weight room.

“I’m not mad,” said Blair, who will fly to San Antonio on Monday to meet with team officials. “It’s time to get to work and show everybody what they missed.”

Not mad… now. No doubt he was pissed at the time. I’m just wondering how effective the weight room at the William Penn was for a guy like Blair.

Not surprisingly, he is not going to have regrets right now.

“No, this is what I wanted,” Blair said yesterday morning on a conference call the day after the San Antonio Spurs drafted him with the No. 37 overall selection. “I think it was a good decision. I couldn’t have landed in a better situation than I am in now. [San Antonio] just traded Kurt Thomas, their starting forward. It’s a dream come true. I should have been a first-round pick, but God wanted me to drop to the second round.”

God and a lack of ACLs in the knees.

Blair said he was disappointed when other power forwards, many of whom did not produce the way he did in college, were being taken ahead of him.

“Of course, it was eating me up,” he said. “A team I didn’t even work out for picked me. That’s funny.

“I have to stay positive. It was emotional when my name was called. God wanted other people to go ahead of me. It’s time to go to work and show people what they missed.”

Chip. Meet shoulder.

And it seems that the Spurs were legitimately thrilled that they ended up with Blair simply by sitting still.

Still, one staffer in the draft room Thursday said there were “cartwheels and high-fives,” and R.C. Buford later gushed as he rarely does about any draft pick.

An especially daring prediction: Blair will play 20 minutes a night.

The Spurs had tried to trade up into the middle of the first round, but Blair wasn’t the target. Like everyone else, they worry about his health.

From what the Spurs know thus far, his knees are not demonstrating instability. His function is not affected as long as this is the case, though the length of his career is in doubt. That’s why Blair left Pitt early, and it’s why the Spurs, like other teams, didn’t want to commit to a first-round contract.

So they mostly watched Thursday night as general manager after general manager talked himself out of Blair. When he dropped to the second round, the Spurs started making calls, looking to deal, but the Rockets escalated the bidding by buying picks.

Then Blair fell to No. 37. Not only did the Spurs change, so did the perception of them.

Analysts linked this to the Parker/Ginobili drafts, as if this franchise is magic. The media in Dallas and Houston asked why their teams couldn’t do these things.

In truth, as it was with Tony Parker, all the Spurs did was wait.

As the post-draft reaction indicated, yes people were singing the praises of the Spurs once more. The Spurs drafted the best player available and filled a glaring need.

The Spurs have an obvious need on the frontcourt after including big men Kurt Thomas and Fabricio Oberto in the trade that brought Jefferson from Milwaukee on Tuesday. Blair said he believes he can bring some of the toughness and rebounding that Thomas once provided.

Projected as a first-round pick, Blair’s stock fell due to red flags on his medical report. He played two seasons at Pitt on a pair of knees reconstructed in high school after twin ACL injuries.

“There’s no secret there’s a medical issue there,” Buford said. “We were the fortunate recipient of that. We’ve got a great medical staff, and we’ll have him on a great program here.”

Even with those players, the Spurs were 30th out of 30 teams in offensive rebounding. Even with the bigger stronger players in the NBA, I don’t see how Blair doesn’t have an impact immediately (barring injury).