ORLANDO – The Nets gave Andray Blatche a chance to resuscitate his career a year ago.
That, combined with having a chance to play for a contender, made the big man’s decision to re-sign with the team an easy one.
“This was the team I was with last year, and I felt comfortable with the whole organization, and the moves that we made, as far as bringing in Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry, I thought we made a big step towards being a legitimate team to win the championship, and I wanted to be a part of that,” Blatche said on a conference call with reporters Thursday.
While Blatche said that he had some other offers from around the league, he only ever really had one choice in mind for where to continue his career.
“It never crossed my mind about going somewhere else,” he said. “After last season, after everything went so good, I just felt comfortable here and I wanted to come back.”
Both Blatche and Shaun Livingston officially signed with the Nets Thursday as the roster begins to take shape, with the blockbuster trade bringing Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry to the Nets from Boston set to go through today.
Retaining Blatche, who re-signed for one year and roughly $1.4 million with a player option for the second year, gives the Nets a legitimate scoring threat at both power forward and center, as well as much needed depth behind both Garnett and Brook Lopez.
And any fears about potential cuts in playing time after the blockbuster trade with the Celtics quickly went away for Blatche after he sat down with new Nets coach Jason Kidd last week after free agency began.
“It was more like just basically telling me my role, what my role would be like, what my minutes would be like,” Blatche said of his meeting with Kidd. “What’s expected of me, what his plans [are] for me for the season.
“Everything he said, I pretty much agreed with him about it … he made my decision easier.”
Blatche also said he and Kevin Garnett have put their previous issues behind them. The two of them got into it while Blatche was in Washington and Garnett in Boston back in 2010 in a game where the Celtics made a late run to come away with a victory and Garnett got under Blatche’s skin.
“Actually, I can say Kevin, he surprised me,” Blatche said. “We were playing one game against each other, I believe it was last year, in Brooklyn.
“I was playing against him and he said, ‘Hey man, just keep your head up and keep fighting.’ When he said that, it caught me off-guard, because me and him have our history, and I said, ‘All right, I guess we’re cool now.’”
Livingston, like Blatche, was also drawn to the Nets for a pair of reasons. As a point guard, getting a chance to play for a Hall of Famer in Kidd and alongside an elite floor general in Williams made for what he said “really wasn’t a hard sell,” when Kidd and Williams put in calls to recruit him to join the Nets.
But equally important was a chance for Livingston to play for a contender after spending the last several years playing for losing teams.
“Playoff basketball was some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing basketball, because of the competitiveness,” said Livingston, who hasn’t made the playoffs since he was a Clipper back in 2006. “It’s just a different game. It’s almost like night and day from the season, because everything is magnified, everything is under the microscope, all of the little things … the whole city is behind your back, and it’s great.
“That’s where every team strives to be, and I just felt that was the most fun I had playing basketball. I loved the atmosphere, I loved the opportunity to compete, and to compete at the highest level.”