Andray Blatche was a more than serviceable big off the bench for the Nets last season, and it looks as though he’ll get a chance to repeat that performance next year.
Blatche has agreed to re-sign with Brooklyn, as first reported by longtime NBA scribe Peter Vecsey. Howard Beck of the New York Times reported that it’s a one-year deal worth $1.4 million, but that won’t make up anywhere near the entirety of Blatche’s salary for next season.
After being amnestied by the Wizards before last season, Washington is still on the hook for Blatche’s salary, and like everything else spelled out in the collective bargaining agreement, there’s a complicated formula for determining just how much his former team will have to pay. In this case, it comes out to a figure in the neighborhood of $7.5 million on top of the $1.4 he’ll receive from the Nets.
The numbers and the production are nice discussion points, but the most intriguing part of all of this is how Blatche will mesh with Kevin Garnett next season, who’s notorious for demanding maximum effort and intensity from his teammates, especially on the defensive end of the floor, at all times.
Blatche has had a history of being a bit of a goof in the effort department, but entering his ninth NBA season and with Garnett coming in to regulate, you’d expect that he’d find a way to fall in line behind the leadership of one of the game’s all-time greats.
Blatche averaged 10.3 points and 5.1 rebounds in just 19 minutes per game, while shooting a career-best 51.2 percent from the field for the Nets last season.
