7/9/15
July 8, 2015 will be a day people in Los Angeles and Dallas (especially Dallas) won't forget anytime soon. That was the day DeAndre Jordan backed out of his commitment to the Dallas Mavericks at the last minute. Players have changed their minds and backed out of deals before, but none of those deal reversals have had ramifications as destructive or dramatic as this one did. As for the Mavericks, this is not their first time being burned.
In 2012 Jason Kidd agreed to a 3-year, $9 million contract to stay in Dallas and retire as a Maverick. The same day he committed to the Mavericks, J. Kidd switched it up on them and agreed to a similar contract with the Knicks, where he finished out his playing career. I remember Mark Cuban being highly upset about that, so much so that he went on the radio and said that he wouldn't be putting J. Kidd's jersey number in the rafters. The Mavericks went on to have a revolving door at the point guard position in 2012-13.
The DeAndre Jordan snub hurt the Mavericks much worse because their whole offseason was built on getting DJ. They completely sold out to get him in Dallas. With the Mavericks under the assumption that they had DJ, they let Tyson Chandler sign with the Phoenix Suns. They also didn't make offers to the next best centers available, and all of them got snatched up. Even the Lakers managed to get Roy Hibbert in a trade from the Pacers. The Mavericks' big signing was Wes Matthews, who was supposed to be a complimentary piece for a team built around DJ. Now the Mavericks are screwed, having a bunch of cap space, but nobody to spend the money on. All they did was operate like they had a done deal, like it was set in stone, which happens to be standard practice for deals agreed to during the free agency moratorium. There is no Plan B when Plan A pulls the rug out from under you at the last minute.
Why exactly did the Mavericks want DeAndre Jordan so badly? To them, he was a bridge to the post-Dirk era, their next franchise player. He's a 7-footer that dominates the glass (led the NBA in rebounding last season), an elite rim protector, and he never takes nights off and gets better every year. Players with his abilities don't grow on trees. DJ claimed that he wanted a bigger role than he was getting with the Clippers, and the Mavericks would have given him that. Dirk Nowitzki is a selfless player that puts his team's needs first, and he would have been glad to let DJ have all the shine he wanted. That won't ever happen with the Clippers as long as Chris Paul and Blake Griffin are on the team. DJ could have been the focal point in Dallas, but maybe deep down he was more comfortable being 3rd in the Clippers pecking order. Whether fair or unfair, instead of being the team's next star, in Dallas DeAndre Jordan will always be seen as the man who destroyed the Mavericks.
With DJ, I believe the Mavericks would have been in a good situation. Along with him, Dirk, Chandler Parsons, and Wes Matthews they would have been a solid playoff team, and then next year they would go into the offseason with max cap space to pursue Kevin Durant. If not KD, then Al Horford (as Dirk's successor) or Mike Conley would be nice fallback options. But as of right now, the teams is in the worst situation it could find itself in, with no assets worth mentioning and nobody to spend their money on. All that's left for the Mavericks to do now is to rebuild. If they want to keep their 1st round pick next year, the best way to do that is to lose about 60 games. Because of the Rajon Rondo trade, the Celtics get the Mavericks' draft pick unless it's in the top 7. By that logic, the Mavericks would have to be as bad as possible to get the highest draft pick possible. With that being said, I just don't see them tanking the season, especially with Dirk Nowitzki still on the team.
With all of that being said, I'm still in shock with how many people are defending DeAndre Jordan for the way he screwed the Mavericks over, especially from the media. The justification for this move is just plain ridiculous. To me, this is INDEFENSIBLE!! This whole situation is bad business, just plain UNETHICAL, and won't end well for the Clippers. Yes, DJ had every right to change his mind, but he handled it like a coward. He refused to answer phone calls from the Mavericks front office and from his good friend Chandler Parsons. He also didn't respond to text messages from Mark Cuban or have the guts to tell him face-to-face that he changed his mind. If DJ had held out until he was sure about his decision, the Mavericks could have put together a backup plan. Instead, he dragged this whole process out until there were no viable options left. He put the Mavericks organization in a huge bind by being dishonest with them, and that WAS NOT cool.
Let me put it another way: The indecision itself is not the issue. Nobody is saying that DJ wasn't allowed to backtrack. The timing and his decision making process is what had everybody looking at him sideways. Did you notice that DJ was the ONLY free agent that backed out of the deal he agreed to? Again, I can't see how this whole thing is being defended. You can support DJ and the Clippers all you want, but it still doesn't change the fact that all he had to do was wait until he knew what he wanted to do. At the end of the day, the Mavericks got screwed by missing out on other players they might have gone after.
The reason this whole mess happened in the first place was because of shoddy rule-making. NBA free agency operates from a set of unwritten rules. The league allows teams to start negotiating with free agents on July 1. For the next 8 days there is a moratorium on signing players. The NBA's fiscal year ends on June 30, and during those 8 days the NBA's accountants are auditing the league's finances and determining the next year's salary cap. July 9 is the day that players can officially sign the deals they agreed to during the moratorium. There is an obvious loophole in this situation: The deals negotiated in that 8-day window are not binding, but the NBA treats them that way. In other words, when a player makes a verbal commitment to a team during the moratorium, the rest of the league leaves him alone. There is an unwritten rule that once a player commits to a team they are off-limits.
DeAndre Jordan's decision appeared to be a genuine change of heart, but because of the rules in place, it also could have easily been a malicious way to sabotage the Mavericks' offseason. If that was the case, DJ and the Clippers could have gotten away with it and there wouldn't have been anything anybody could do about it. This is also why I believe there will be some implications for the whole league. Teams can use this situation as a reference point to start doing free agent espionage - have your best free agent players commit to sign with another team, especially a rival, and then back out at the last minute and re-sign with you, effectively sabotaging your rival.
As for the Clippers' role in this mess, they would be the first ones to point out the DJ started it when he called Doc Rivers and teammates saying that he was having second thoughts. Once they saw that they had a chance to get DJ back, they jumped on it. They didn't take any chances either. As a matter of fact, if Doc built a moat around DJ's house that day, I wouldn't have been shocked. The fact that they froze DJ's agent out of the whole process spoke volumes to me. Also, people are more likely to bend or ignore rules when more is on the line. In the Clippers' case, their status as a contender was on the line.
Here is the question I have about this situation:
If you have to barricade a player's house and basically hold him hostage until he signs a contract, do you really want that player on your team?
Here are 2 points I came up with after it all went down that I haven't heard being mentioned:
1.) Chris Paul is the president of the NBA Players Association. With him holding that position, participating in these shenanigans is not a good look for him. I wonder why nobody mentioned his role in the NBPA's statement about DeAndre Jordan. Would the union be as kind and conciliatory if the player in question wasn't Chris Paul's teammate? I don't know about that. It's true that the NBPA exists to support the right of players over owners, but I have always wondered exactly how much all players actually benefit from the NBPA when one team and one owner have gained a lot from having their player be its leader.
2.) DeAndre Jordan not only screwed the Mavericks, but when you back out of a deal like that, you could be possibly screwing over your agent, and even possibly your own team. Once teams find out about an incident like this, they could lose trust in that particular agent and decide not to do business with him ever again. Once that happens, that agent's other clients would fire him and find themselves a new agent. A lot of free agency moves would go differently if he committed to the Clippers in the first place. But now that this mess has happened, the Clippers might have a hard time doing business with other teams in the future. There might not be a lot of incentive to help them out if they are interfering with other front offices like that.
I also have to question DeAndre Jordan's thought process in making this decision. His biggest gripe was that Doc Rivers and his teammates didn't treat him like a player who grew up and evolved from the 2nd round pick that he was. He also supposedly doesn't get along with Chris Paul. How can somebody with those issues with that coach and those players be OK with them coming to his house and stay all night, keeping him from talking to other people? He also said that he wanted a bigger role on offense, and that won't happen in L.A. At the end of the day, DJ is going back to the same exact thing he said he wanted to leave. For what DJ claimed to want and what he was saying throughout the whole courting process with the Mavericks, that's not an option for him with the Clippers. I believe he's content in L.A., and that he thought it would be easier to just stay there and be the 3rd wheel on a perennially underachieving team than to make a decision to branch off and take the next step in his career. To me, this further proves that DJ is not ready to be a franchise player, satisfied with being in the shadows of Blake Griffin and Chris Paul.
Did the Clippers really win by stealing DeAndre Jordan out from under the Mavericks? I don't think so. When it's all said and done, they still have a team where the star players don't like each other. The problems between the center and the point guard didn't fix themselves, and I don't see a resolution anytime soon. I believe DJ was lied to by the Clippers. In the beginning, they will give him more touches on offense, but as the season goes on things will go back to normal and he'll be back to being an afterthought. Then when he complains about it, they'll tell him to be quiet and "know his role". At that point, he'll remember why he even considered leaving in the first place and wish he was in Dallas, regretting his decision to stay.
One more time, nobody is saying that DJ didn't have the right to change his mind. The problem is that he said one thing and did another. When a man gives an organization his word, especially when that organization put so much effort into building a team around him, putting all their eggs into his basket and making everything they do all about him, to not have the decency to let them know he wasn't coming was as wrong as 2 left shoes. I understand having second thoughts or getting cold feet, but you back out of a commitment THAT BIG that late in the game, leaving the Mavericks high and dry. That's very unethical and disrespectful.
Like I said earlier, this situation should show the NBA office, owners, and players how this moratorium loophole can be exploited to weaken other contenders and division rivals. If not close the loophole altogether, there should at least be some alterations made to it. I know it's unlikely, but I believe the Mavericks should challenge this transaction. I know they probably won't win, but I still think it's a fight worth fighting. I think this was the most classless, and sleaziest conduct I have ever seen by a professional sports team. It's bad enough that the rules allow these things to happen. But if anybody knows how immoral and unjust it is to require an organization to count on the word of a player, to the franchise's detriment, and then have another franchise come in and tortiously interfere with that advantangeous business relationship after all the rest of the major free agents are off the market, it would be another professional sports organization.
I bet if you dig deep enough, you would find all kinds of dirt in this situation. In my opinion, the fact that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and Doc Rivers met with DeAndre Jordan speaks volumes. Not only is Doc the team's head coach, he's also the president of basketball operations. It's one thing to have a player unilaterally change his own mind or even be swayed by a former teammate to reverse his decision, but this situation is completely different. What you have here is an owner and president of an NBA team aware that a player has made a commitment to a competitor, making one last push to bring that player back. Since there was technically no contract in place, Mark Cuban likely wouldn't be successful in filing a claim against the Clippers for tortious interference with a contractual relationship, but he could still make a bold statement by filing for tortious interference with business expectancy. I also heard that a case could also be made for intentional interference with prospective economic relations. It's been publicized that the Clippers' pursuit of DJ bordered on badgering.
Once again, I don't think this should go unchallenged - win, lose, or draw. If Mark Cuban does decide to take a stand, it could set and change the tone on how free agent negotiations are done in the future. I'm not a Mavericks fan, but I hated seeing them get screwed like that. All I know, is that karma doesn't have an expiration date. The Clippers and DeAndre Jordan might not reap what they sowed right away, but they WILL eventually reap their harvest. This whole thing won't end well for DJ and the Clippers at all.
