Andray Blatche lives in a Houston condominium and has been working under the tutelage of John Lucas since May. Just to refresh, Blatche, 26, is a recently amnestied NBA center actively looking for work. He spent all seven of his season with the Washington Wizards, and he certainly holds the stigma that comes with being associated with the gun-toting Gilbert Arenas era in DC. Of course, Blatche was the guy on the team who had actually been shot before.
But since he's been kicking it with Lucas, the 6-foot-11 Blatche is keeping it light, trimming down from 282 pounds to 268. Just check out this feature The Post Standard wrote on his weekend trip back home to Syracuse.
Lucas has Blatche on a regimen of yoga, weights and basketball workouts. Keep in mind, while he's no star, Blatche averaged 16.8 points and 8.2 rebounds a game in the 2010-11 season (John Wall's rookie year).
So where are the Rockets on this? Last I checked, they didn't have much of a backup center, or starting one for that matter. It'd make sense to look into this. Blatche has been available (July 17) for over a month now. And the Rockets have been lacking at the 5 position much longer than that.
The Omer Asik "highlight video" is all well and dandy. But even if he turns out to be almost good, dude's not going from putting in 14 minutes a night to playing the whole game.
Let's read, from the Post Standard link, some thoughts from Blatche.
"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."
Basketball is supposed to be important to the Rockets, too, but Les Alexander is out here trying to buy the Dynamo and the Rockets don't have centers even YOU would feel comfortable passing the ball to, much less an NBA point guard.
Again, not to overstate how good Blatche is, but if he's camped out in the city trying to reinvent himself and the Rockets are pretty much doing the same, this would just be so damn easy.
Read more on the Rockets at The Dream Shake blog and SB Nation Houston. There's even more content at the NBA hub page.