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The Clippers have not given up on DeAndre Jordan

By Trisity Miller

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Just when you thought free agency couldn’t get ANY crazier, crazy has reared its head: ESPN is reporting the Los Angeles Clippers is going all out hail-mary in a last-second attempt to re-sign DeAndre Jordan.

In very short time a lot has emerged on the matter, so let’s jump through this tweet by tweet.

The Hail Mary

Marc Stein broke the news of the story, stating the Clippers were making a day-before-moratorium-ends push to see if DeAndre Jordan has a change of heart in store in regards to his decision to join the Dallas Mavericks on a four-year deal.

The Band Will Be There

With the Clippers securing a last-minute meeting with Jordan, they won’t be making the same mistakes as last meeting. Stein and Dan Woike of the Orange County Register report the other two-thirds of the Clippers’ Big-3 in Griffin and CP3 will be in attendance when they visit Jordan’s Houston home.

If Paul joins the meeting, this means he’ll be doing what Dirk Nowitzki did a week ago and abruptly ending his vacation (Paul is out with Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Carmelo Anthony at the moment) to do so. According to reports, Jordan bought in big to Nowitzki doing so to show up and recruit him on joining the Mavericks, and in the reverse, was upset no players were present when Jordan met with the Clippers.

This is LA’s attempt, albeit a last minute one, to negate that.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

Speaking of Chris Paul, a big part of why Jordan left the Clippers, if all reports on the situation are to be believed, was because of a continuously poor relationship with lead point guard Chris Paul.

Following Jordan’s decision, reports stated Chris Paul gave half-hearted attempts when reaching out to Jordan. If the two didn’t like each other as advertised, that news comes to no surprise.

Also, if Jordan does decide to return, they wouldn’t be the first two players in NBA history to play on the same team while disliking each other.

Rare, but We’ve Seen This Before

July moratorium is a time period where teams and players agree to deals while the NBA figures out the salary cap for the following season. All agreements made during the 8/9/10-day period: not guaranteed, and if Jordan reneges on Dallas deal he won’t exactly be a trail blazer: this has been done before.

In 2009, now-Clippers free agent Hedo Turkoglu backed out of an agreement with the Portland Trail Blazers to sign a five-year, $53 million deal with the Toronto Raptors.

In 2004, Carlos Boozer reneged on a hand-shake agreement with then-Cleveland Cavaliers general manager Jim Paxson, spurning the team in his restricted free agency to join the Utah Jazz.

Crazy, but not unfamiliar.

Wait, Doc Didn’t Know What

Reading any comments related to the Dallas Mavericks signing DeAndre Jordan, it’s clear Chandler Parsons, Mark Cuban, and all of who were involved in meeting with Jordan on Dallas’ end sold the All-Defense 1st team member the dream, feeding to the tales of Jordan wanting a bigger role in his teams offense.

“He can average 20-20”.

Cuban said Jordan could be Shaq-like.

Meanwhile, it looks like the Clippers did no dream selling in their lone meeting with the big man (and per reports, the Clippers are a bit ticked off the Mavs got more than one meeting with DJ). Per Basketball Insiders Alex Kennedy, Rivers didn’t know of Jordan’s want for a bigger role.

Unless Jordan lied to Rivers’ face, it’s odd how Rivers wouldn’t know this when he prepared for his meeting with Jordan. More pick-and-rolls attempts per game for Jordan is easy to make possible, especially with Chris Paul, Lance Stephenson, and Paul Pierce in the picture.

DeAndre Jordan isn’t 100% sold either

If any of the mentioned tweets on this insane scenario mean anything, the one from Chris Broussard (ESPN) holds the most weight: even after making his decision, Jordan is “unsure” and “torn” in regards to his decision.

This is what makes all of this possible. If Jordan’s mind is 100% made up and he had already moved on, the Clippers wouldn’t have been unable to secure this last-minute meeting.

So How Does This End?

Pain.

Regardless of what decision Jordan makes, the other side will immediately feel the impact of it. We’ve already seen in less than two weeks how Jordan’s decision has altered the championship window of this Clippers team. They lack money to find a viable market and have been dangling Jamal Crawford in hopes of landing a starting-quality big.

If Jordan pulls a 180 degree turn, this same feeling will transfer over to the Dallas Mavericks who’ll be stuck with an aging Dirk Nowitzki and a recovering Wesley Matthews and Chandler Parsons, all while having cap space to sign a center but no marquee name left on the market (unless you want to include Jordan Hill).

Fun, and for the Clippers fans who remain optimistic, I’ll leave you with this:

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