The DeAndre Jordan saga was one of, if not the, premier stories from this NBA offseason. We all know what happened at this point. Jordan was an unrestricted free agent and agreed to a verbal agreement with the Dallas Mavericks and owner Mark Cuban. However, a couple days later rumors surfaced that Jordan had a change of heart and ulitmately decided to remain a member of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Plenty of fans and players have criticized Jordan’s handling of the situation, most notably his good friend Chandler Parsons who plays for Dallas. Add current Mavs backup point guard Devin Harris to the list as he gave his two cents on the DeAndre Jordan fiasco. Following from Earl Sneed of Mavs.com:
Devin Harris on DeAndre Jordan: "I think, if he could have done it a more mature way, it would have been a lot better off."
— Earl K. Sneed (@EarlKSneed) August 5, 2015
Devin Harris: "What is done is done, and we have to move forward and move on to the next step and try to look forward to getting better."
— Earl K. Sneed (@EarlKSneed) August 5, 2015
It is rare for a player to promise a verbal agreement to one club but ultimately blow them off and go officially sign elsewhere. The biggest issue most critics have with this situation is the way he handled it though. He ignored all of Cuban’s calls and fed him lies of why he couldn’t answer the phone while he was actually holding a meeting with the Clippers.
The Mavericks got hit hard by Jordan’s change of heart as their roster took a big hit as they lost Tyson Chandler and Monta Ellis. Sure they did add Deron Williams to a decent contract, but off-guard Wesley Matthews was way overpaid. They also went out and acquired Zaza Pachulia and Samuel Dalembert to fill up that gaping hole at center. Dallas could be in contention for the 8th seed in the stacked Western Conference but either way, Dirk Nowitzki’s latter years won’t translate into much success for the Mavs.
