DeJuan Blair was back in Pittsburgh for a few days while his basketball camp was happening.  Blair lends his name to the camp and makes appearances, but leaves to operations to those that know what they are doing. That said, he was there each day and had fun.

“It was pretty cool,” said Anthony Pettko, 10, of Mt. Lebanon, wearing the No. 45 San Antonio Spurs jersey of his favorite NBA player. “A couple of my friends got to play him one-on-one. He took it easy on them.”

Blair, the former Pitt star who just finished his rookie season with the Spurs, is hosting his own youth basketball camp at Robert Morris University.

The four-day camp, run by Five-Star Basketball, opened Tuesday for boys and girls ages 9 through 18.

“It was amazing,” Blair said. “They couldn’t believe I was playing with them and interacting with them like I was. It was as fun for me as it was for them.”

Then it was time to head back to San Antonio briefly before heading to Vegas for NBA summer league — which starts today.

The only Spur to play in all 82 regular-season games last season, Blair was given a summer assignment by head coach Gregg Popovich: Develop a jumper, and learn how Spurs power forwards defend.

Summer league will seem a lot like summer school.

“Pop told me he wanted me to learn the four, and that’s what I want to do,” Blair said. “It’s all about developing, so the more I can play, the more I can get better.”

Not long after the Spurs were swept from the second round of the playoffs by the Suns, Blair was back in the gym working with Spurs shooting coach Chip Engelland.

“I’ve put a lot of time in, almost every day in the summer,” Blair said. “I’m just trying to get a shot to add on to my game and try to get quicker and try to get my body down.”

Blair had the option of going easier. Staying in San Antonio and just working with the coaches on developing his game. Instead Blair insisted on going to summer league.

Initially, the Spurs were leaning toward keeping Blair home to focus on individual workouts. Blair, an NBA All-Rookie selection last season, had other plans.

“He wanted to play,” said Dell Demps, the Spurs’ director of player personnel and de facto GM of the summer league team. “The one good thing about DeJuan is he wants to get better. For him to want to come play in this, I think it says a lot about his commitment to getting better.”

It’s not just a credit to Blair’s work ethic, but a smart move on his part to make sure he doesn’t find himself crowded out of the Spurs’ frontcourt. Tiago Splitter is finally joining the Spurs. That is addition to Tim Duncan, Antonio McDyess, Matt Bonner and Blair. Minutes could be tougher this year.

A couple stories on Pitt basketball recruits for 2011 and 2012, both via NBE Blog.

Ray Mearngh has a story on watching John Johnson at a small tournament in Indiana, he caught the action and did a brief interview.

Afterwards Johnson told me he was really “focusing on playing good D, passing the ball and getting my midrange game going.” I asked him about Pittsburgh and told him that a lot of folks are eager to see him play there and he smiled shyly.

“When I went on my visit there it was like a family,” Johnson said, “the coaches can be like father figures to me and that’s important because I don’t want to go to college just for basketball…I want to become a good man too.”

Johnson is a shy kid, preferring to talk to me away from his teammates because he seemed embarrassed by the attention, but he’s all baller when on the court. He’s a talent offensively that Pitt hasn’t seen at the guard spot in quite some time, very quick. Almost a quicker Scottie Reynolds type. He’ll need some coaching but he’ll get it. His upside is very high.

Meanwhile Chris Dokish tracked down the coach of the mysterious Kiwi known as Steven Adams.

At this point, one may wonder why such a talent has gone unnoticed. According to [Kenny] McFadden, that is easily explained.

“In our part of the country you have to pay to be at the top level and his financial situation wasn’t the best. He was the best big man in the country at 15 and should have played in the Under 19 World Championships, but he just couldn’t. But now that he’s older he will be able to play in them.”

McFadden says that Adams, whose mother is Tongan and father is English, has never been to the U.S. but that will change tomorrow when the New Zealand team will play for two weeks in Las Vegas.

“We did fundraising for a year so that we can make the trip and get our kids noticed.”

That may explain why Dixon made the push for Adams now, before the rest of college basketball becomes more aware of the Kiwi behemoth. And for that Dixon can thank McFadden.

“We played professionally in New Zealand together many years ago,” says McFadden, who played for George Raveling at Washington State. “And we have been friends ever since. When Jamie was down here for the World Championships, we sat down and I told him about my players. He was interested in Rob Loe (6?11? center) at the time, but he went to play at St. Louis. And I told him about Steve, and I told him that he was even better. He is bigger and more skilled than Rob was.”

And to show the range of the eighteen member Adams household, McFadden adds, “Both Jamie and I played with one of Steve’s older brothers. He was in his forties and Steve is just sixteen.”

One of 18 siblings. That’s, um, a fertile family. The potential downside. When working with the “pro” players in New Zealand. It includes Eric Devendorf. Let’s hope not too much of the Devo-tude rubs off on him.

It will be interesting after playing in Vegas for a couple weeks what recruiting sites and people who see him say. I expect “raw” and “upside” to be slightly overused. Perhaps a smattering of “sleeper.”