With the season over, it’s time to look back at the inaugural Brooklyn campaign. To do so, I’m going to take a look at each player on the roster, examining how they got here, what happened this season, and what their future holds. Today, we’ll kick off the series with Andray Blatche.
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2012-13 Regular season statistics:
10.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 1.0 steals, 0.7 blocks in 19 minutes per game across 82 games (eight starts). Shot 51.2 percent from the field and 68.5 percent from the foul line.
2012-13 Playoff statistics:
10.3 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 0.3 steals, 0.4 blocks in 19.7 minutes per game across seven games (no starts). Shot 50 percent from the field and 82.4 percent from the foul line.
How he got here:
The Nets signed Blatche to a non-guaranteed one-year deal as a free agent late in the offseason, though it was assumed at the time that he was a near-lock to make the team out of training camp.
Season in review:
When Blatche was amnestied by the Wizards last summer, some wondered if he would ever get another NBA job again after his tumultuous tenure in the nation’s capital, including sitting out most of last season, first with a calf injury and then because Washington simply didn’t want him around any longer.
But after going to work out with John Lucas in Houston over the summer, Blatche met with then-coach Avery Johnson, who was convinced to give Blatche a chance with the Nets, basically guaranteeing him a roster spot.
No one could have known it at the time, but it turned out to be a master stroke for the Nets, as Blatche wound up becoming one of the team’s key contributors this season. He was the only player to suit up and play in all 82 games, and teamed with Brook Lopez to form one of the NBA’s best 1-2 punches at the center spot, and easily its best from an offensive standpoint.
When given the opportunity, Blatche also was effective at times playing alongside Lopez, including in the playoffs against the Bulls.
The season wasn’t without its speed bumps for Blatche, however. He seemed to tail off a bit at times after the decision was made to fire Johnson, the man who had brought him to Brooklyn and placed him on a strict workout regimen to help keep him on the straight and narrow. There also was the incident in his Philadelphia hotel room the night his contract was guaranteed for the rest of the season. Of course, Blatche came out the following night in Philadelphia and scored 20 points and grabbed seven rebounds in a Nets win.
Still, it’s impossible to call the decision to sign Blatche in the first place anything but a huge success for the Nets. To get a player to produce as much as Blatche did for a non-guaranteed deal – and especially given his size – was a huge win for the Nets this season. It’s hard to imagine they’d have been as successful as they were with another big man on a similar deal in his place – and, in fact, might have been several games worse.
Where does he go from here?
To me, what happens to Andray Blatche in free agency is going to be one of the most fascinating subplots to play out this summer. In the past, a player like Blatche – a clearly talented, athletic 7-footer who produced the way that he did this season in Brooklyn – would be a player who would easily get a multi-year deal, possibly for as many as four years, and for at least a few million dollars a season.
But, like J.R. Smith with the Knicks, it should be fascinating to see how a player like Blatche is impacted by the league’s collective bargaining agreement that was agreed upon during the lockout. This is the first summer where we’ll truly begin to see the restrictions that agreement put into place begin to have an impact on teams and how they spend their money.
The Nets have said they would like Blatche to come back, and Blatche has said the same, but we’ll see what happens. With the Nets all but certain to use their one exception to sign a player for more than the minimum to sign Bojan Bogdanovic, the only way they could re-sign Blatche is to offer him 120 percent of what he signed for last year – or a little less than $1.5 million.
It will be interesting to see whether that – with the possibility of a bigger payday the next offseason, when the Nets will retain his “Early Bird” rights – will be enough to retain him, if the Nets want to do so, or if Blatche will get a multi-year offer on the market that will be too good for him to pass up, even while he’s getting paid by the Wizards each of the next two seasons.
tbontemps@nypost.com