Former Washington Wizards big man Andray Blatche is in a unique situation next summer. He is a free agent because his one-year minimum contract with the Brooklyn Nets expires, and yet he still is being paid $7.8 million next year and $8.5 million the year after from the Wizards after being released with the amnesty clause last summer.
Because he's still cashing those checks, Blatche will not make the full value of whatever his new contract ends up being due to a complicated league formula explained here by Nets Daily.
Under the formula, laid out in the new collective bargaining agreement, the key is the "offset" amount, the reduction that a player's old team gets when he signs with a new team. It is not straight dollar-for-dollar. Instead, it is equal to one half the difference between the player's salary with his new team and the minimum for a one-year veteran player. Vets minimum numbers depend on a player's time in the league, the more years, the higher the minimum. So the formula at its most basic is (new salary - vet minimum for 1 yr player) / 2 = set off amount + new salary = total player salary.
So in 2012-13, Andray Blatche's numbers work out like this:
Offset Amount ($1,146,337- $762,195) / 2 = $192,971
Washington Pays $7,118,502 - 192,071= $6,926,431
Brooklyn Pays $1,146,337
Total Salary $6,926,431 + $1,146,337 = $8,072,768
Blatche makes $954,266 more than his original contract with Washington
Based on that formula, if Blatche signs a contract worth $3 million next year, he'll only make a little more than $1 million, with the rest of his payments coming from the Wizards.
Because of that, Blatche really doesn't care that much about the money value of his next deal. The more money he makes on it, the less the Wizards have to pay.
And ... as you might expect, he's very aware of that. Via the New York Daily News:
"If I get a lot (in my next contract), yeah, it's going to take pressure off the Wizards," he said. "But that's why I'm not going to do that."
Guess he's still mad, then.