Syracuse, NY -- Andray Blatche came back to Syracuse Friday afternoon, to a place where he once bounced basketballs for the sheer joy the competition inspired.

Back then, the game was simple. The game, for Blatche, was fun.

He grew up at Pioneer Homes, a public housing project that sits hard by Interstate 81. As a young boy, he would hopscotch from Kirk Park to Wilson Park to the Southwest Community Center seeking ways to relieve his boredom and work out his pent-up energy.



And on Friday, at Kirk Park, Blatche saw glimpses of himself in the 200 or so kids who showed up to socialize at the Andray Blatche Foundation's fourth annual party and backpack giveaway.

Blatche, who turns 26 on Wednesday, stands these days at the crossroads of an NBA career that spans seven years, all with the Washington Wizards. On July 17, the Wizards used the NBA’s amnesty clause to erase Blatche and his salary cap-clogging $23 million contract from their roster. No other NBA team claimed him.

A 6-foot-11 forward with skills that allowed him to average 16.8 points and 8.2 rebounds only two seasons ago was suddenly unemployed.

His ties to the Gilbert Arenas era of guns and other irresponsible behavior made him expendable to an organization hoping to shed its image as an NBA slacker and resurrect its brand. Over the years, Blatche had accumulated a history of incidents that did not endear him to Wizards fans.

He was shot during a carjacking, picked up by undercover police for soliciting sex and arrested for reckless driving. All those incidents happened before he turned 22.

His final season with the Wizards turned into a slow, painful march toward insignificance. He appeared in just 26 games of the shortened lockout season, his final ignominy occurring on March 20 when the organization benched him for lack of conditioning.

“It was very tough,” Blatche said Friday. “It seemed like the Wizards had a string of bad luck with the gun situation and so on. Me getting amnesty this year wasn’t more of a hurt to me, it was more of a blessing to me. I’m looking at that as giving me a chance to go somewhere else and revive my career and become the player I used to be.”

To that end, Blatche’s mother, Angela Oliver, helped facilitate a connection with John Lucas, who is based in Houston. Lucas, the former NBA guard, coach and general manager, has built a reputation for resuscitating ailing NBA careers. Lucas said he looked at Blatche and saw a familiar reflection.

“That was me,” he said, “26 years ago in the league.”

Blatche bought a condominium in Houston, where he has lived since May. Lucas instituted a regimen of yoga, weights and basketball for Blatche to trim what was once a soft 282 pounds into the firmer, trimmer 268 he weighs today.

Blatche “has worked very, very hard,” Lucas said, to whip his game into the kind of shape that would entice NBA teams to take a chance on him. Rumors have swirled about interest from the Miami Heat or the San Antonio Spurs. Blatche laughed when asked about them.

“My dream destination right now would be back on the court. For real. Just to get back on the court,” he said. “It’s something I love to do. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Heat or the Spurs or the D League. Whatever. As long as I’m back on the court playing ball.

“I mean, I love the game. I’m a fan of the game. I love playing basketball. That’s the only thing I’ve been doing since I’ve been little. Basketball is something that is very, very important to me.”

When Blatche played at Henninger, his coach marveled at the skills he possessed. He handled the ball like a guard, Henninger coach Erik Saroney said. He had perimeter range and had such keen basketball intellect, he often used time outs to instruct the coaching staff.

Blatche, with his August birth date, was younger than everyone in his class. So he went to South Kent High School for a fifth year to fortify his grades and prepare for his future. He entered the NBA draft in 2005 straight out of high school. The Wizards selected him with the 49th pick.

He turned 19 later that summer. Blatche acknowledged he could not resist the lifestyle of excess that a mixture of money and youth often encourages. He described himself as “a guy who was very sociable.” And that, said Blatche, “was my mistake.”

"It was difficult — coming from Syracuse, a small city, going to a big city like D.C., where there were a lot of colleges and probably one of the craziest nightlifes," Blatche said. "I got there as a young kid and I didn't have my priorities straight at first. I was moreso basketball and having fun. But basketball wasn't about having fun any more. It was my job. It took me a few years to realize that. And once I did, I was better."



His friend and former Wizards teammate Hamady Ndiaye said he and Blatche stuck to a strict regimen of workouts last summer in preparation for the NBA season. Ndiaye said he noticed a shift in Blatche's focus. No longer was Blatche as enthralled with the parties and the frivolity.

“It was the most focused I’d ever seen Dray,” Ndiaye said.

The lockout softened that focus. Blatche said he “was under the impression that there wasn’t going to be a season.” So he spent time in South Carolina, where his mother now lives. He took his family on a Jamaican vacation. He visited old friends in Syracuse.

When an agreement was reached to start the season, Blatche was woefully out of shape. He had a month to reshape his body. He tore his calf muscle, he said, and played with pain. He injured his shoulder. When the Wizards shut him down last March, Blatche said he felt badly about the way his career would ultimately end in Washington. Wizards general manager Ernie Grunfeld could not be reached Friday to talk about Blatche.

“The GMs came to me and said, ‘You know, you’ve been hurt, you’re out of shape, so let’s say that you’re working to get your body back right, to get over your wounds,’¤” Blatche said. “And then when I saw on the paper, not a DNP, but a conditioning, I was kind of upset because that’s not what we talked about. But I ran with it because conditioning was part of it. But it was moreso the injuries that caused the conditioning problem.”

Lucas saw the flabby body last May, but more importantly, he understood the dynamics that derail a young man dazzled by a grownup world of sudden opulence. Lucas offered to serve as Blatche’s sounding board “on life issues.” He describes Blatche these days as “a work in progress – he’s really growing and maturing and I think he’s learning how to be a pro both on and off the court.”

“He’s shown the commitment to get in much better shape and the humility that comes with being amnestied,” Lucas said. “Some team will give him a chance. But nobody will take your word for it. You have to prove yourself.”

Blatche wants that chance. He talked Friday as children clambered over him. They tugged on his white T-shirt, they grabbed his hand. They adored him.

At one point, Blatche interrupted some kids playing football. He stole the ball and laughed as kids pursued him. Later, he traded his flip-flops for Ndiaye’s Converse canvas high tops to play one-on-one with his cousin Darnell.

Angela Oliver, the CEO of her son’s foundation, said she loved Washington, DC, and spoke reverently about Grunfeld. But it was time, she said, for Andray to move on.

“Sometimes you go through your life and there are phases that you’re going to have to go through,” she said. “This is a phase to say goodbye to the Wizards and move on to another team.”

Everyone on Friday seemed to believe that new surroundings would breathe new life into Blatche and his basketball career. He is 6-foot-11. And even in flip-flops, playing basketball on the Kirk Park playground, he still offers intoxicating possibility.



"I think he's been misunderstood a little bit. I think in Washington, he was a scapegoat and the bad guy for some of the problems that they had," Saroney, his high school coach said. "Obviously, I don't know all the inner-workings of the team. But once you get that label, it's hard to shake. I think by going to another team, he has the chance to prove that wasn't the case."

“He understands now, I believe, what to expect,”Ndiaye said. “And I think that at this point, everything he’s learned is just going to help him go further. His mind is in the right place. I can see him changing his habits.”

Donna Ditota can be reached at 470-2208 or dditota@syracuse.com.