It’s been clear for a while that Andray Blatche wasn’t going to develop into the player the Washington Wizards hoped he would be. He started showing some promise a couple years ago, but after this season, his stock has bottomed out.
The Wizards have the option of using their one-time amnesty on Blatche and getting his $7 million off their payroll for next year. Blatche would still get paid but the Wizards wouldn’t have to take such a big hit to their salary cap.
Obviously, the amnesty isn’t ideal and the Wizards best option is to trade Blatche at this point, but that looks highly improbable. I’m not sure what kind of pitch you use to try to sell a team on a guy that you cut because he was fat and out of shape.
Blatche’s whole career has been riddled with disappointment on the court and poor decisions off it. Even if the Wizards don’t amnesty him, they will reportedly cut him from the team and pay him his money to sit on his butt and do nothing. He’s that bad that they’d rather pay him to stay away from the team than have him contribute in any way.
Washington looks to be a team on the rise with their young point guard John Wall and the high expectations they have for third overall pick Bradley Beal. They also added Emeka Okafor, Nene and Trevor Ariza to their roster so the expectations have to me much higher for this coming season than they were last year.
Blatche just doesn’t fit in with this team anymore. His negatives far outweigh the positives and a guy who came into the NBA with a lot of potential may be looking at the end of the road. Is there another team out there that would want to take a chance on this guy? Maybe if the price is right, but the rest of the league has watched the Wizards overpay Blatche for years, surely no one else is going to make that mistake.
