FanPost

Should Blair be Starting?

I must say, DeJuan Blair is outperforming my expectations. I knew he'd hustle and provide some energy off the bench, but I'm starting to think Samuel Dalembert needs to be worried about loosing his starting spot. When you look at the per game basic stats, their production looks pretty similar: Blair with 9.2 PPG, 6.4 RPG, and .6 BPG vs Dalembert with 8 PPG, 7.6 RPG, and .6 BPG. However, things start to skew in favor of Blair once those numbers are further scrutinized. When we look at minutes, Blair is delivering these numbers playing an average of 4.6 less minutes than Dalembert. However, looking at the advance stats create an even more compelling case. I've bolded several key fields worth noting:

DeJuan Blair:

Season Age Tm Lg Pos G MP PER TS% eFG% FTr 3PAr ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% ORtg DRtg OWS DWS WS WS/48
2013-14 24 DAL NBA PF 5 99 23.7 .523 .525 .225 .025 20.0 16.0 18.0 8.2 5.8 2.5 12.0 21.3 110 97 0.2 0.2 0.4 .193

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/7/2013.

Samuel Dalembert

Season Age Tm Lg Pos G MP PER TS% eFG% FTr 3PAr ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% ORtg DRtg OWS DWS WS WS/48
2013-14 32 DAL NBA C 5 122 14.5 .605 .567 .233 .000 9.9 25.1 17.4 3.6 1.6 2.0 19.5 14.2 109 104 0.2 0.1 0.3 .107

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/7/2013.

In pretty much every single category except true shooting percentage, Blair's numbers are better. Now, to some degree despite being better they're close enough to argue that the Mavericks could start either and there would be almost no impact. However, I can't help looking at Blair's defensive rating of 97 versus Dalembert's 109. With the Mavericks limited defensive abilities, that alone might warrant Blair getting more minutes. The season is still young and who knows if Blair and continue his production, but right now the numbers favor him.

Reader submitted. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our editorial staff.