re: Mutual interest between Pels and Andray Blatche

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Thank goodness. Giving that cancer 6M+ a year is just dumb. We don't have a KG to keep him in line. We need to keep lazy, quitters away from Davis.

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — In his first act as Andray Blatche’s mentor, John Lucas took away his car keys. It was a deposit of sorts, a down payment on rebirth.

Before Lucas could help Blatche salvage his N.B.A. career, he needed to see a commitment. For seven years in Washington, Blatche had tantalized coaches with his unique blend of size (6 feet 11 inches) and skills and athleticism, only to repeatedly disappoint with his poor work ethic and off-court antics.

When Blatche at last sought out Lucas — a former N.B.A. star and a renowned guide to wayward souls — the only question was whether Blatche had the will to follow through. So Lucas asked for his keys, which would not be returned until Blatche had shown his dedication.

“I didn’t know Andray before,” Lucas said in a telephone interview, “but I did know the skill level. I told him that nobody questioned his basketball. Everybody questioned his commitment.”

The questions will surely linger as Blatche enters his first season with the Nets, who signed him to a one-year contract in September after the Wizards cut him loose. But Lucas sees a talent ready to shine, an evolving young man who is finally ready to embrace responsibility.

Blatche, 26, spent three months this summer at Lucas’s gymnasium in Houston, receiving a daily regimen of tough love, counseling and remedial nutrition training. He weighs 265 pounds now, down from 285, and is working to drop another 5. His new teammates raved about his play in September scrimmages. Coach Avery Johnson has already named Blatche his backup center.

“He doesn’t back down from anybody,” Johnson said after the Nets’ first practice Tuesday. “He’s a skilled player.”

But the best sign might be Blatche’s willingness to own his past.

“A lot of mistakes,” he said of his Washington tenure. “But I was a young guy. And not to make no excuses for myself, I did a lot of things. And I also didn’t do a lot of things. But I was punished for the things I did and I learned from it, and I’m moving on.”

Johnson is not looking back, either. “No concern whatsoever,” he said of Blatche’s missteps in Washington. He added, “It’s a clean slate.”

That slate needed a power sander.

Blatche missed his first N.B.A. training camp in 2005 after being shot in the chest during an attempted carjacking. In 2007, he was charged with soliciting a prostitute, who turned out to be an undercover police officer. A year later, he was arrested on a charge of speeding and was cited (for the third time) for driving with a suspended license. Blatche earned further infamy last year for hosting a party known as Lap Dance Tuesday at a Miami club.

His conduct on the court could be just as maddening. In his worst moments, Blatche combined impulsive shot selection with indifferent defense. Yet his talent was clear. In a torrid 32-game stretch to close the 2009-10 season, Blatche averaged 22.1 points and 8.3 rebounds while shooting .485 from the field.

That summer, the Wizards rewarded him with a five-year, $35 million contract extension. They are still paying him $23 million for the final three years of that deal after waiving him in July.

Blatche was so out of shape last season that the Wizards at one point shut him down and publicly listed the reason as “conditioning.”

“A wake-up call,” Blatche called it. “The job of my life, the job I love doing, can be taken from me in an instant, a blink of my eyes. To see what happened to me, to see that I have another chance, I don’t want that to happen again.”

Blatche sounded contrite and hopeful. He became defensive only once, while disputing long-ago reports about a fight with his teammate JaVale McGee, which he said were exaggerated.

In Houston, Blatche first received counseling and a psychological assessment, “to see if there were any issues,” said Lucas, who has battled drug addiction. “We didn’t find anything there.”

What Lucas did find was a player who became complacent after finding early success in the N.B.A., after entering the league as teenager in 2005.

“I just think Andray forgot how to work,” Lucas said, adding, “People stopped believing in him, and he stopped believing in himself.”

The Wizards’ locker room was perhaps the worst place for an immature player in need of guidance. Their personality was defined for years by Gilbert Arenas, whose locker-room gunplay nearly wrecked the franchise.

The Nets are certain Blatche will benefit from a more stable environment and a veteran locker room. Lucas says he also plans to visit periodically. He says Blatche has the talent to be a starter and said he could be “the steal of the summer.” He recalled the first conversation they had in Houston many months ago.

“I was very stern with him early,” Lucas said. “I told him: ‘I’m going to take the keys to your car. But you can get them back.’ And he got them back.”

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