Andray Blatche called into the Mike Wise Show earlier today to defend himself against a legion of callers than criticized him angrily. In the process, he said a bunch of things that make you wonder what's going on in his head.
For example, he did something I don't think I've really heard a professional athlete do: he admitted he's a "finesse" player.
"If anybody watched me grow into this team and into this league, they'd know that I've never been a back-to-the-basket, bang-bang down player. I'm more of a face-up and a finesse player. That's who I am. I can't force myself to be a different player that I'm not."
Kind of a weird admission, but hey, I guess he's being honest. The natural follow-up question here is whether that's the same thing as being soft. It's not, according to Blatche.
"A finesse player is going to be called soft, so it don't bother me much. But I'm far from soft. Everybody's entitled to their own opinion."
That doesn't exactly inspire confidence. You know what else doesn't inspire confidence? Blatche admitting that he's really not seeing results out of this weight lifting.
"I lift. When I do lift, I'm the type of person where I don't see results at all ... I've tried everything. I got a chef so I could start getting as healthy as I could eat, but I don't know what it is. I'm trying."
"My coaches and Ernie are very supportive. If my jump shot is flowing, then they have no problem with it, but if it's in a slump right now, they tell me to focus on being around the rim, which I have no problem with at all because right now I'm slumping."
- Blatche said that the incident at Shadow Room was a shouting match, not a fight. He said he was trying to convince JaVale McGee to leave, but he didn't want to initially and it was just a small argument. "People did their jobs and boosted the whole story up."
- Blatche on his critics: "It's easy to criticize me off what you're seeing me on the court, because you don't see me telling the guys what to do when I can .... "They focus on me missing shots. They don't see all the other little things I do. They just go out and worry about me getting 30, when I can affect the game other than scoring." That's not the criticism I've heard, personally. In fact, it's the exact opposite. Later, he said this: "Coming after Antawn, Gilbert and Caron, all being great scorers, this city, that's what they expect. That's what they want from players. I guess they see what I did last year and think that's what I'm capable of doing, but I just need to continue to work at it and get out of this shooting slump." Weird response.
- Blatche on Gilbert Arenas: "It's tough for me to say. To me, it's just Gilbert being the Gilbert I met when I was a rookie. It's just that it's a new day and age, and some of the stuff he does he can't do now because of his situation. But to me, he's been the same guy since I've been here." He then said Rashard Lewis is much more professional than Arenas and that he reminds him of Antawn Jamison. When asked who the leaders are, he said Lewis and Josh Howard.
- Finally, Blatche had this to say about the team: "Our record shows that we're a bad team, but we're not a bad team. I mean, every game we lose, it's in the fourth quarter. There's only one game we actually got blown out. All the other games, we're in it til the end, until we make critical young mistakes. If it weren't for the young mistakes, we'd have won half those games." The Wizards have lost eight games by 15 or more points this season.