Blatche: Coach Saunders 'Needs to Apologize'

Filed under: Wizards, NBA Coaches

As we discussed this morning, the emergent Andray Blatche has a rough night Tuesday, yanked from what would become Washington's 13th consecutive loss because of a defensive lapse followed by an allegedly snotty remark to the Wizards coaching staff. Blatche never re-entered the game against the Bobcats, even though it was ultimately winnable (it went to overtime) and Blatche is inarguably the team's most talented big man.



Usually in these situations, on the day after, the embattled player draws back and makes up with the coach, wanting to stem the damage. For Andray Blatche? Not so. Not flippin' so.



Dan Steinberg has the best bits of Blatche's appearance on Washington Post columnist Mike Wise's D.C. radio show today. The best-est bit of all can be found in the headline to this here post -- Blatche believes that not only should he have to apologize to his teammates, but that he deserves an apology from the coach who benched him, Flip Saunders.



Blatche's anger at Saunders stems not from the incident itself, but from what Saunders told the media after the game (which is what we quoted this morning, that Blatche said "he didn't feel like playing.") Blatche told Mike Jones of CSN Washington that Saunders's claim was a "bold-faced lie," that Blatche never said that to coaches.



To further complicate matters, Blatche and Saunders couldn't hash it out before the player hit the airwaves because ... Saunders skipped this morning's team meeting with a migrane. Assistant coach Randy Wittman led the session, and held to his bosses line on the matter: Blatche let down his team.



I suspect this isn't the last we've heard of the Blatche-Saunders relationship. Regardless, to have a team's star (even if by default) call the high-priced head coach a "liar" in the media ... yeesh. Almost makes you long for the halcyon days of Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton.

 

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Full story at http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/03/24/blatche-coach-saunders-needs-to-apologizes/