Nets’ Blatche May Represent Philippines, a Nation That’s Foreign Even to Him - NYTimes.comNets’ Blatche May Represent Philippines, a Nation That’s Foreign Even to Him - NYTimes.com






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Pro Basketball 
Nets’ Blatche May Represent Philippines, a Nation That’s Foreign Even to Him

By ANDREW KEHJAN. 30, 2014
 
Inside








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Andray Blatche dunking this month. To play for the Philippines in the FIBA World Cup, he’d have to be naturalized as a citizen.

Credit
            Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times        



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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. —  The world of Andray Blatche — an often colorfully odd place — is expanding.After finishing practice with the Nets on Thursday, Blatche casually and rather comically confirmed an international report that he was being recruited to join the Philippine national basketball team before the FIBA World Cup this summer. Blatche, 27, is from Syracuse, more than 8,000 miles from Quezon City, where the Philippine team trains. The incongruity of all this was met Thursday with bewilderment on social media and laughter inside the Nets’ practice complex.Even Blatche was a tad hazy on the details.“I’m not too quite sure about anything about it,” he said. “They brought it to my attention, and I was like, ‘Yeah, that sounds cool.’ ” 

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On Blatche’s end, it may actually be that simple, and as a whole, the situation may not be quite as random as it seems. Blatche said he first learned about the opportunity through the Denver Nuggets’ JaVale McGee, his friend and former teammate. McGee has been on the Philippine Basketball Association’s radar since he traveled to the country for an exhibition game during the N.B.A.’s lockout season. Blatche guessed that McGee made connections while traveling overseas for Peak, a Chinese sportswear company that sponsors him.Within FIBA rules, the most common way that a player can represent a country different from his birthplace is if at least one parent or grandparent was born in that nation. This is prevalent among players in the United States because of its big talent pool and general diversity, said Craig Miller, a USA Basketball spokesman. Roy Hibbert of the Indiana Pacers, for instance, has played for Jamaica because his father was born there, although Hibbert is currently trying to restore his eligibility to play for the United States.“But it doesn’t sound like these guys fit that criteria,” Miller said of Blatche and McGee.Rather, Blatche and McGee would have to be naturalized as citizens by the Philippine government. The naturalization process was how Becky Hammon, a W.N.B.A. player from Rapid City, S.D., came to represent the Russian women’s team at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.Blatche said the Philippine team contacted him only a few days ago. According to The Philippine Star, Congressman Roberto Puno filed two separate bills this week in the Philippine House of Representatives to have the players naturalized before the June 30 roster deadline for the World Cup, which will begin in August in Spain.FIBA rules permit only one naturalized player per 12-man roster. McGee has been rehabilitating a stress fracture in his left tibia, and the Philippine team, The Star said, is viewing Blatche as a backup of sorts for him.“Honestly, it just came out of left field,” Blatche said.But left field is where Blatche often feels most at home. As he settled into a seat at the Nets’ practice complex Thursday, he asked a group of reporters to refer to him as Young Seymour.“The crowd wants to see more,” Blatche said more than once. “I’m going to give them more.”Continue reading the main story
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When first asked about his involvement with the Philippine team, Blatche said he was Filipino. Then he said he was half-Filipino. “I’m going to go back home,” he said before adding, “Nah, I’m messing with you.”Blatche then seemed to claim to be related to Marivic Lardizabal, the Nets’ manager of basketball operations, who is of Philippine descent. And he also asked a reporter about his background. “I thought you were Filipino, too,” Blatche said.On a more serious level, he said, the experience could be a positive one on numerous levels.“I’m looking at it from the standpoint that I can go where I’ve never been before,” he said, “and also it’ll give me an early head start to get ready for training camp and for the season.”Blatche is known for his easy temperament and occasional eccentricity, so the news about his possible Philippine naturalization, as odd as it may have been, seemed to fit well with his personality.Few other players have a playing style that seems as much like a pure distillation of their personality and speech patterns, and it is easy to see why his services could be in demand around the world. Blatche, a 6-foot-11, 260-pound center, possesses an improvisational streak that belies his height and size. He likes to pump fake and shimmy and shoot from afar. He likes to dribble behind his back. It is possible that not every move is carefully considered.But Blatche has been a big contributor this season off the bench, averaging 12.1 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. His effort on the defensive end, where the team as a whole has seemed revived this month, has been noteworthy, too, and his unpredictability has often seemed like his greatest strength.His next move, then, could take him to a country on the other side of the world that he has never visited and seems to know very little about.REBOUNDSAndrei Kirilenko missed practice for a second consecutive day with a sore right calf. The Nets were awaiting the results of a magnetic resonance imaging exam, and the team said he was questionable to play Friday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder. ... Mason Plumlee, a rookie center, will play in the Rising Stars Challenge on Feb. 14 during All-Star weekend in New Orleans.


A version of this article appears in print on January 31, 2014, on page B15 of the New York edition with the headline: Nets’ Blatche Is Being Recruited to Represent a Nation That Is Foreign (Even to Him).  Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe









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