DISTRICT HEIGHTS, Md. - I'm not sure people noticed it, but on Tuesday, Craig Stouffer of the Washington Examiner came out to the workouts trainer Joe Connelly is organizing and asked Andray Blatche what he knew about the status of Nick Young, who of course is a restricted free agent. Here was Blatche's quote then:
"I feel there's a chance he won't back," Blatche said. "Either way it goes, we got Jordan Crawford that came in and did great work for us. At this point, I just want all the guys to come back home to D.C. and start working out together. I think it's important for us to start getting our chemistry."
I found it somewhat interesting, if only because this was the first quote anyone gave to my memory that expressed any doubt that Young would return. (For what it's worth, Stouffer himself thought I was reading too much into it).
Anyway, I went out to District Heights to check out the session today and I asked Blatche himself what he meant by the quote he gave. Here's his answer:
"You know what? It's him being a free agent. He may be restricted, but there's no telling what happens during the negotiations," he said. "I'm just wishing for the best for him, his family and his career. If he wants to come back, that's great. If he decides that he'd rather go somewhere else, I think we'll take that into consideration and let Jordan Crawford step up. We're always going to play around that, and he will decide if he wants to be part of this program. This is going to be a winning program."
Thought that was interesting. As for Blatche himself, he volunteered that his shoulder, which he's been rehabbing all summer, was about "75 percent" capacity, but he didn't expect to miss any of training camp or preseason. I was surprised to hear that number. On the court, he certainly looked in shape and didn't show any ill effects. There was one moment where he was being guarded closely by Cliff Dixon from Western Kentucky and he got into a bit of a shouting match before cooler heads prevailed, but that wasn't really a major physical breakdown or anything. Not sure exactly why Blatche pulled such a low number out of his head.
I'll have more from Connelly on Blatche and Hamady Ndiaye later in the day.