It pains me to have to post this, given the fact that 1) I'm a partial/sometime season ticket holder for the team and 2) this seems like a pretty good kid. But I can't resist.
Washington Wizards forward Andray Blatche, a restricted free agent, was arrested early Thursday on sexual solicitation charges.Where do I begin? Blatche is probably an unknown to casual NBA fans, but for those unaware, he was the last "prep to pros" NBA player drafted before David Stern and Co. closed the floodgates a few years ago. After a rocky rookie season in which he was shot in an attempted car-jacking (earning the nickname Bulletproof), Blatche turned it on this season, showing uncanny ballhanding and shooting ability for a 7-footer. Considered a big part of the team's future, Blatche is currently in line for a huge pay raise. The team has an outstanding offer to him in the neighborhood of $12M over 4 years or so.
Blatche, 20, and a man identified in court documents as Gregory Palmer, tried to solicit sex from an undercover police officer, according to charging documents.
Blatche was scheduled to appear in District of Columbia Superior Court on Thursday, court spokeswoman Marie Robertson said. He was also wanted for failure to appear on a charge of driving without a license, stemming from an arrest in October 2006, according to court documents.
And the kid (he's just 20) throws it all away, for what?!??
I hate puppeting critics of the game who argue that NBA players should go to college first. This argument always struck me as racial (nobody complains when baseball, hockey, and tennis phenoms do the same) and rife with classicism for good measure. But here's a kid who is frighteningly immature for even a teenager. When you add millions of dollars to this equation, the potential for something catastrophic to happen is right there.
Perhaps a better question is why does a 20 year old multi-millionaire living in a city life DC feel the need to pay for some coochie!?!? I thought access to groupies was one of those fringe benefits of being an NBA baller? You mean to tell me he couldn't just go hang out at a club somewhere and pick up some random chick? I suppose in the grand scheme of things, solicitation is somewhat more regal than just takin' the coochie like some of his colleagues, but not by much.
I'm not willing to give Mike Vick the benefit of the doubt, but I'll extend it to this kid, because immaturity and all, he doesn't have any pattern of doing such things. And BTW, Kevin Garnett plays for the Celtics now and we need all the post defense we can get.
Cause let's be honest: it's all about the W's. Just win baby!
And stay off 13th Street.
Wizards' Blatche Arrested [AP]
