Andray Blatche: Brooklyn Nets Contract Breakdown

The Numbers:
2012-13: $1,146,337

Contract: Andray Blatche signed a non-guaranteed training camp deal in September with the Brooklyn Nets that became fully guaranteed for the season in January. He is now an unrestricted free agent.

The Nets signed Blatche last season because it was a low-risk, high-reward situation: if he didn’t work out, the Nets could have cut him and owed him a very minimal amount of money. If he worked out (he did), the Nets would have a solid backup center for the minimum salary. Blatche ended up becoming arguably the best backup center in the league.

Rights: The Nets currently hold Andray Blatche’s non-bird rights, meaning that the most the Nets could offer Blatche is 120% of the minimum salary, with 4.5% raises each season for a maximum of four years. If Blatche elects to go this route, he could potentially sign a contract worth roughly $6.9 million over four years.

The Nets could also offer Blatche the entire taxpayer midlevel exception, or about $9.98 million over three years, but the Nets will likely use it on their Croatian Euro-stash, Bojan Bogdanovic.

Blatche could also try to gain Early Bird rights from the Nets. In this scenario, Blatche would need to re-sign with the Nets for one season (giving him two seasons with the same team). This would allow the Nets to pay Blatche 104.5% of the average salary in the previous season. Early Bird rights permit players to re-sign for a maximum of four years, Blatche could potentially sign a four-year deal worth somewhere around $25 million after next season.

Andray Blatche’s unique situation: Back in 2010, the Washington Wizards signed Andray Blatche to a 5-year contract worth roughly $35 million. After a failed 11′-12′ season, the Wizards used their one-time amnesty on Blatche following the dismal campaign. Once he cleared waivers, the Nets took a chance and signed him for the minimum salary.

Using a complicated amnesty formula to determine the total payments Blatche will receive in 13′-14′ and 14-15′, Blatche will actually make more (in total) both this season (13′-14′) and next season than he would have had he stayed with the Wizards.

The key is the “offset amount”: the amount of money that the player’s former team — in this case the Wizards — has reduced from what they were originally supposed to pay the player. This offset amount is equal to to one half the difference between the player’s salary with his new team and the minimum for a one-year veteran player.

Let’s say Blatche signs a 3-year contract for 120% of the veteran’s minimum. His salary in year one would be $1,519,172. Since he is also being paid by Washington, here’s the formula to determine what Blatche’s total salary would be for the 2013-2014 season.

Offset amount: $1,519,172 – $788,872 (minimum salary for 1-year veteran) / 2 = $365,150
Washington pays: $7,794,921 – $365,150 = $7,429,771
Brooklyn pays: $1,519,172
Blatche’s total 13′-14′ salary (if this scenario occurs): $8,948,943

As you can see, that $8.9 million figure is roughly $1.2 million more than Blatche would have made with Washington. If the same calculations are done for Blatche’s salary in 2014-2015 he will make a total of $8,851,169 in that season.

No matter what, Blatche will make at least $8 million in each of the next two seasons. Because of that, Blatche has stated that he will be willing to take less money in order to make his former team — the Wizards — pay more.

Final Thoughts: Andray Blatche’s case is unique. Even if Blatche wants to test the free agent market this summer in hopes of finding a larger contract than what the Nets can offer, he can only earn so much. He will also be taking the burden off of Washington if he finds a contract that is larger than what the Nets are offering.

As an example, let’s say that a team offers Blatche a contract worth $12 million over 2-years ($6 million per year). If the offset formula is calculated for each of those two years, Blatche will be earning $11,189,357 in year one and $11,879,580 in year two for a total of $23,068,937. Compare this with the scenario described above where Blatche re-signs with Brooklyn for 120% of the vets minimum, and he would earn around $5,366,599 more by signing the 2-year, $12 million deal.

Though $5.4 million seems like a lot of money to pass up, it would mean that the Wizards would be paying roughly $4 million less than they would owe if Blatche re-signed with Brooklyn at 120% of the vets minimum.

Blatche’s agent Andy Miller will advise him to think about the future, when the Wizards amnesty payments end. If Blatche and his agent think along these lines, Blatche will likely sign the contract that gives him the most long-term financial security. The Nets need to hope that another team doesn’t offer Blatche a long term contract (3-4 years) for decent money. If this doesn’t happen, Blatche may very well be in Brooklyn next season and possibly beyond. If this does happen, we will wait and see what the future holds for Andray Blatche.

Next: Keith Bogans