NBA

Blatche boast: Nets are ‘best team’ in NBA

Forget about LeBron James and the Heat, Derrick Rose and the Bulls, Kevin Durant and the Thunder. Andray Blatche says the Nets are the team to beat this season.

“I think we are the best team,” he said during media day Monday at Barclays Center. “This team can be great. We got everything that a team needs to win a championship. We got heart, defense, offense, bench, great coaching staff.”

The talkative and high-scoring reserve forward, who enjoyed his best NBA campaign last season in Brooklyn, sees championship pedigree in the Nets after they added future Hall of Famers Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in a blockbuster trade with the Celtics while also picking up scoring guard Jason Terry (also came through the trade with Boston), versatile forward Andrei Kirilenko and small forward Alan Anderson.

James, Dwyane Wade and the two-time champions in Miami, who swept the 2012-13 season series from the Nets, do not scare Blatche.

“In my head, yes, we’re the best team,” said Blatche, who re-signed with the Nets after the Celtics trade. “Just because [the Heat] won the championship the last two years, I’m not going to give them they’re the best team. They did it last year. This is a whole new year. We’re going to try to be the best.”

The Nets have yet to begin official practices, but Blatche was impressed by his new teammates in recent workouts – so impressed he didn’t mind talking big before the official start of training camp.

“Our whole starting five are All-Stars or once been All-Stars,” he said, referring to the grouping of Pierce, Garnett, Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez. “I don’t understand how teams are going to stop up. We come off the bench with Kirilenko, Jason Terry, myself, Reggie [Evans]. We’re deep. We just got to put the work in.

“I had a couple of options to go different places, even some places they wanted me to fight for a starting position. I also saw what they have going on here. I wanted to be a part of it.”