Mark Cuban leaves the past in the past with DeAndre Jordan
By Cody Rivera
There will be no awkwardness between DeAndre Jordan and Mark Cuban as Jordan joins the Mavericks this season.
At last, DeAndre Jordan is a member of the Dallas Mavericks. We thought we would be saying that a few years ago, until Jordan decided to leave the Mavs hanging at the last minute.
In one of the more infamous moments of Jordan’s career, he agreed to sign with the Mavericks in free agency back in the summer of 2015, then out of nowhere, he changed his mind. He re-signed with the Los Angeles Clippers, guaranteeing a season of awkwardness whenever the Clippers traveled to Dallas for a game with the Mavs.
As expected, it didn’t sit well with Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. But three years later, now that Jordan really is committing to Dallas this time around, it’s all water under the bridge for Cuban at. And that’s the way it has to be for Jordan to be successful with his new team.
“There’s like four guys I hold grudges with, and three of them are from grade school, maybe even before,” Cuban said in an article on ESPN.com. “I just want to win. Look, only Dirk [Nowitzki] and J.J. [Barea] were there from that period anyway. All of our guys were like ‘go get him! Go get him!’
“I talked to him on the phone, and he’s like, ‘Everything behind us?’ I’m like, ‘Let’s go win.’ He goes, ‘Let’s go to war.’ Done.”
Cuban is known as one of the more outspoken and competitive owners in the NBA, so it’s good to see that he isn’t holding any beef with Jordan. At 6-foot-11 and 265 pounds, Jordan has always been one of the more dominant rim protectors in the league, and he’ll fit in nicely with the Mavericks as they begin the process of transitioning from being Nowitzki’s team to the younger Luka Doncic.
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Rick Carlisle, who has been the head coach of the Mavericks since 2008, is also putting the history with Jordan in the past.
“Sometimes things take a while to happen,” Carlisle said in the same ESPN article. “Sometimes you have obstacles, you work through them and figure it out. That’s what we did.”
Jordan’s deal with Dallas is for one year, and is for almost $23 million.