NBA

Nets’ Blatche not a Wizard at gratitude

Andray Blatche has resurrected his career this season with the Nets after being amnestied by the Wizards over the summer.

But the Nets backup center could not resist a chance to take a shot at his former organization — which has started this season 0-12 — before Monday night’s 96-89 overtime win over the Knicks at Barclays Center, and then went on a Washington radio show Tuesday to explain himself.

Speaking to reporters in the Nets locker room, Blatche asked, “Anybody seen how the Wizards are doing?” He later went on Twitter after the game and wrote, “Feels good to be part of a winning organization.”

Those comments prompted radio hosts Holder Kushner and Danny Rouhier on 106.7 FM in D.C. to ask Blatche, who spent seven years with the Wizards, to come on their show Tuesday morning and explain his comments.

“They could have explained what was going on, they could have had my back, they could have done anything,” Blatche said during the 24-minute interview that touched on a wide variety of topics, including his promotion of “Lapdance Tuesday” at a club in Miami in May 2011 and his arrest for sexual solicitation in 2007. “I don’t care what they would have done. It could have been anything, it could have been something small other than to say, ‘Well, you know what, this is our escape route. We’re gonna leave him out there for himself, he’s gonna fend for himself now.’ “No, that is not what you do when you’re family … that’s not what you do. I don’t care what my brother, sister, uncle anybody does, I’m gonna have their back 100 percent, because they’re family and that’s what you do when you’re family.”

Blatche took some responsibility for the struggles that he went through with the Wizards, particularly last season, when a combination of a calf injury and getting out of shape made him a pariah in Washington. He averaged 8.5 points and 5.8 rebounds in 26 games before the Wizards agreed to pay him the more than $23 million remaining on his contract through the 2014-15 season to go away.

“I was out of shape,” Blatche said. “I was. I will 100 percent admit that, and that’s 100 percent on me. I could have done a lot more workouts, done more stuff in the pool. I could have done more to take more stress off my legs.”

He also said that he had no issue with Wizards owner Ted Leonsis, saying “He’s a first-class guy. I don’t have anything against him.”

But Blatche said his relationship with Wizards general manager Ernie Grunfeld, who drafted Blatche as a second-round pick out of South Kent Prep (Conn.) High School in 2005 and gave him a contract extension in 2010, was “alright” before adding, “I don’t like how he didn’t have my back.”

After the interview, Blatche tweeted, “I feel much better I’m moving on and leaving the past where it’s at.”

As for the “Lapdance Tuesday” promotion, Blatche said, “Lapdance Tuesday is not a strip club. It’s a regular club in Miami. It’s called Cameo. On Tuesday nights, they call it Lapdance Tuesday. It’s not a strip club at all. You can go down there on any Tuesday, and you will not see no strippers.”

He also called his 2007 arrest for soliciting from an undercover officer, a charge that was later dropped after he attended a seminar and followed court orders, “a joke gone bad.”