Even the multiple and varied fiascos that have shaken the Wizards to their very core this season haven’t threatened the team like what happepened tonight. Yes, including the Gilbert Arenas debacle, which was rekindled today by memos submitted by the prosecution and Arenas’s lawyers ahead of his sentencing for gun possession on Friday.
One caveat, of course, is that we haven’t heard Andray Blatche‘s side of the story, but history and professionalism aren’t on his side.
So, what did he do that caused him to play a mere 7 minutes, 31 seconds in the overtime loss to the Bobcats? On the night in which the Wizards PR staff had passed out flyers putting him forward as a candidate for the NBA’s most improved player, a sheet full of boasts about all the numbers that he’d piled up this season?
“We took him out of the game, wanted to talk to him about not getting back on defense, not cross-checking, where Mike [Miller] got handled,” said Wizards head coach Flip Saunders. “He didn’t want to hear it. I told him, ‘If you don’t want to come and talk, don’t want to be coached, you’re not going to play.’ We had coaches go up to him three different times, and he just said he didn’t want to play. In 15 years, I’ve never seen anything like it. Never. He can be pissed at me, or whatever, but you never leave your teammates hanging out to dry like that, no matter what, especially when you’ve lost 11 games in a row and you have a chance to win a game. Uncalled for, and we’ll deal with it.”
The second quarter, Blatche buried at the end of the bench. The third, the fourth, even when the Wizards were buried in foul trouble, even when Al Thornton knocked down a 3-pointer to tie the game with 8.7 seconds remaining. Players were on their feet, Blatche was either aloof or checking his fingernails.
This is a serious indictment, and one that Blatche, no matter what numbers he puts up the rest of this season – when he plays again – or the rest of his career, will have trouble living down. The one-game suspension Blatche was given back in January after another insubordination incident is nothing versus an actual boycott on playing during a game.
“You know what I’m disappointed in?” said Saunders. “Since we started him, 60 percent of the offense is run through him. Coaches aren’t wrong, no matter what. When a coach wants to teach you something, and you think that you’re above that because you’ve played 16 games. When I had Kevin Garnett, that guy, you’d say one thing, he’s up there, ‘What do you want, coach.’ He wanted to get better every time. He’d never go and cop that kind of attitude. I mean, that’s ridiculous. I am disappointed. I’m the most disappointed I’ve ever been in 15 years with a player, the most disappointed.”
And Saunders has had plenty of disappointment this season. But he put this on his player, questioning Blatche’s credibility with his teammates from this point forward.
Most of the players took the ignorance tact, answering that they weren’t paying attention. Not Nick Young.
“It was just coach being coach and trying to teach him,” said Young. “Dray’s still a young player, and he’s going to go through things like that. I don’t know what really happened. It’s a disappointing situation from both ends because we really could’ve used Dray tonight. I told him, ‘You’re playing well. You don’t want to mess it up. It’s your opportunity. Just go out there and keep playing. Don’t worry about distractions. You’ve got to man up sometimes.'”
Blatche was gone from the locker room by the time the media got there.
When Saunders was asked if Blatche would play tomorrow at Indiana, he said, “I would doubt it. Right now I don’t know, but I would doubt it.”
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