The DeAndre Jordan Saga: A Lakers Fan’s Perspective

As a Lakers fan the chaos that involved DeAndre Jordan’s flip flopping between staying with the Los Angeles Clippers or leaving for his native Texas and signing with the Dallas Mavericks was a farce where it was fun watching both teams embarrass themselves and the free agency process.

Looking at Twitter and the communication by emoji it was hard not to get caught up in watching the Clippers again showing why they are the Clippers and having Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban being portrayed like a “Say Anything” caricature frantically driving around Houston trying to get to DeAndre Jordan before Clippers officials could.

As of July the 3rd when Jordan announced he was leaving to Dallas via free agency, the Clippers due to cap restraints were going to be in trouble replacing Jordan.

It seemed that after the weekend passed Jordan had a change of heart and stopped communicating with the Mavericks and he began reaching out to his Clippers teammates and eventually Coach Doc Rivers.

These conversations lead to the strangest of events where if the reporting is to be believed Clippers officials holed up with Jordan in his Houston home while shutting out Mavericks officials including Cuban.  The Clippers stayed put so that they could guarantee that Jordan would sign his new contract at exactly 12:01 ET when the moratorium on free agents signing their contracts would expire.

As a Lakers fan this circumventing of the whole purpose of the moratorium where verbal agreements are considered final showed again what an embarrassment the Clippers have been for the NBA. It also took the spotlight off of the Lakers’ own chaotic front office missteps during the free agent frenzy of the week before. The Clippers re-signing  of Jordan keeps them as a contender in the always difficult Western Conference, but it also keeps a core of players Jordan, Blake Griffin, and Chris Paul that has failed to make it to the Western Conference Finals and that blew a 3-1 lead against the Houston Rockets in the 2015 playoffs. The contentious relationship with Paul will be brought up again if the Clippers fail in the playoffs again.

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There was another theme on Twitter going around yesterday: karma.  For Mark Cuban an owner who doesn’t know when to keep quiet this fiasco was relished by fellow Laker fans. You have to go back to the post lock out period in 2011 where it seemed

and the Lakers had traded for Chris Paul and had a rumored trade in place for center

. As everyone now remembers mostly due to the protests of Mark Cuban and the whining faction of owners the trade was vetoed by the NBA for vague “basketball reasons” stalling a remaking of the Lakers that would have kept them in contention for the foreseeable future. So it was no surprise when Lakers fans learned that the Mavericks had lost Jordan many where happy about the embarrassing circumstances for Cuban and his team.  It got so bad Cuban lowered himself by engaging in a Twitter war with ESPN reporter Chris Broussard over Cuban’s attempts at meeting with Jordan.

Bottom line Laker fans should be happy Cuban was embarrassed after his lobbying alongside Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, to the league which lead to the Chris Paul trade veto and that the Clippers are still the Clippers.