DeAndre Jordan had a change of heart and mind, and decided to back out of his verbal commitment to the Dallas Mavericks and re-sign with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Jordan never called or reached out to Mavs’ owner Mark Cuban. There has been a lot of criticism online of that action.
Clippers GM and coach Doc Rivers is good with it.
Rivers addressed the media on Thursday about the re-signing of DeAndre Jordan and other summer moves by Los Angeles. He said Jordan didn’t have a responsibility to call Cuban, as reported by Dan Woike of the Orange County Register.
Doc said DJ shouldn't have made the call to Dallas. "When free agents leave, their agents call."
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) July 9, 2015
Doc said Fegan called him when DeAndre committed with Dallas.
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) July 9, 2015
Here’s where I think Rivers is wrong on this count — Jordan had reached out to the Clippers and started to backtrack without his agent, Dan Fegan of Relativity Sports. Fegan was reportedly not getting his calls answered by Jordan either on Wednesday.
I will defend Jordan’s right to change his mind — we’ve all had buyers remorse and in his case the system allowed him to change his decision. It may not be professional, he should have thought this through first rather than become entranced by Dallas’ pitch, but he has the right to change his mind. And I don’t blame the Clippers for pushing for the change once Jordan called saying he was wavering.
But Jordan’s a 27-year-old man, he should have been mature enough and strong enough to talk to Cuban and tell him what he had decided. If you break up with someone, have the cojones to do it face-to-face.
Not shockingly, by the way, Doc Rivers is pretty good with the moratorium as it is right now. Which is good, because it’s 11 days next year, and it doesn’t sound like the union will want to change it.
