DeAndre Jordan had a change of heart. He is heading back to L.A. to play with the Clippers. He had verbally committed with Dallas on a 4-year, $80 million contract on Friday. Jordan was having second thoughts about playing with the Dallas Mavericks. The Clippers sent coach Doc Rivers, owner Steve Ballmer, Chris Paul, and Blake Griffin, yesterday to meet with Jordan at his Houston home. This was in hopes of re-signing the center. The meeting worked and he agreed to come back to the Clippers for 4-years and $88 million. It’s about the same deal the Mavericks gave him.
Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, wasn’t pleased that Jordan didn’t respond to any of his phone calls or texts yesterday. Cuban got the message he wasn’t going to be with Dallas. According to ESPN, Cuban wrote to fans saying, “I don’t think the time is right to say anything beyond the facts that he never responded to me at all yesterday. Not once. To this minute I have not heard anything from him since Tuesday night.” Is it really a big deal that he changed his mind?
DeAndre Jordan feels the L.A. Clippers are in a better position to win now than the Dallas Mavericks. The Clippers are an improved team and should be able to make the playoffs as a top 3 seed, compete to win the West, and possibly the NBA Championship. Dallas is a playoff team but not a top 3 seed. They are a 6 through 8 seed in the West. It makes more sense that Jordan decided to go back to L.A.
This takes place all the time in college sports. A recruit verbally commits to one college team and then decides to sign his letter of intent with a different college. It happened with Head Coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Billy Donovan. He backed out of his first NBA coaching job in 2007. He was the head coach of the University Of Florida and had just coached them to back-to-back championships. Donovan thought he was ready for the NBA but had a change of heart and decided to go back to Florida. The Magic let him go back as long as he didn’t coach in the NBA for five years. Donovan agreed and coached eight more years at Florida before taking the Oklahoma City Thunder job on April 30th.
A verbal agreement is just that. It means that they have talked and agreed to have a contract. They have not signed a contract. The athlete is still allowed to see if they really want to be there and they can continue to shop around for deals. It’s not official that they are a member of that team until the contract is signed. Jordan is doing what is best for him and his career.
What do you think of DeAndre Jordan going back to the Clippers?
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