IT’S on to Mainland China for naturalized Filipino basketball player and National Basketball Association (NBA) veteran Andray Maurice Blatche after an impressive stint with Gilas Team Pilipinas in the recently-concluded 17th FIBA World Cup.
Born in Syracuse, New York, the 6-foot-11 power forward will suit up for the Xinjiang Guanghui Flying Tigers in the upcoming professional Chinese Basketball Association (from October to March) after inking a $2.5-million, one-year deal on September 20.
The Flying Tigers reached the CBA finals last season.
The unexpected move came after Blatche was declared ineligible to see action in the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea because of the three-year residency rule.
The 28-year-old Blatche, who got his naturalization papers in a jiffy by way of an act of the Philippine Congress in June, played center for Gilas Team Pilipinas late last month.
Our boys finished 21st overall in the 24-nation World Cup with a single victory (in overtime) over Senegal in five assignments but Blatche was a dominant presence in the prestigious event.
Blatche finished first in the two-week tournament in rebounding with 13.8 caroms an outing (hulking 7-foot-2 Hamed Haddadi of the reigning FIBA Asia Championship titlist Islamic Republic of Iran was second with 11.4 rpg in five games).
He placed second in scoring at a 21.2-point clip (behind only Puerto Rico’s Jose Juan Barea’s 22.0 ppg) and tied for 11th place in steals with two others at 1.60 spg.
Blatche, who jumped into the NBA directly out of high school in 2005, was the Washington Wizards’ second-round draftee that year. Notwithstanding a string of personal and legal woes (shot in an attempted carjacking three months after being drafted, charged with sexual solicitation in 2007 and charged with reckless driving and driving on a suspended license for the third time in 2008) that earned him a bad reputation, he managed to play with the Wizards from 2005-12 and improved his scoring in each of his first six of seven seasons there.
Blatche registered career highs in points (16.8 ppg – his third straight double-digit scoring campaign), rebounds (8.2 rpg) and assists (2.3) in 64 games in 2010-11. Blatche’s numbers, though, dramatically slipped in 2011-12, dropping to 8.5 ppg and 5.8 rpg in 26 outings due to an assortment of injuries and attitude problems, and he was waived by the Wizards in July 2012.
Less than two months later, Blatche hooked up with the Brooklyn Nets on a three-year contract with an opt-out clause. As a reserve, he managed to norm 10.3 scores and 5.1 boards in 82 games in 2012-13 as the Nets wound up with a respectable 49-33 record and made the playoffs despite a head coaching change in midseason (from Avery Johnson to P.J. Carlesimo).
This past season (2013-14), Brooklyn turned to former playmaker Jason Kidd as its bench boss. The Nets (44-38) reached the second round of the playoffs after a rocky start and Blatche again came off the bench with averages of 11.2 points and 5.3 boards in 73 outings and 22.2 minutes of service during the regular wars.
However, Blatche missed four games in December due to what the Nets then claimed was for “personal” reasons. It was later learned that he was suspended due to “a lack of conditioning and preparedness.”
Last June, Blatche opted out of his Nets contract but merrily latched on with Gilas Team Pilipinas for a two-month employment reportedly worth more than $1 million.
Off to China, Blatche follows in the footsteps of naturalized Filipino player Marcus Douthit, who also saw action with the Foshan (Guangdong) Dralions in the Chinese pro league in October 2011 after his stint with the Philippines national team in the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship in Wuhan, China.
Douthit, after tours of duty with the Nationals in the 2011 and 2013 FIBA Asia Championships, is back with the team as Blatche’s replacement for the Incheon Asiad.
For the record, Gilas Team Pilipinas ranked 21st overall in the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup on the basis of having the best point differential (points scored divided by points against) among the four countries that each landed sixth and last in their respective groupings and failed to advance to the second phase (Round of 16). Among the Filipinos, Alapag was tops in scoring (9.2 ppg) and assists (3.2 apg).