DeAndre wishes it had 'gone differently' with Mavs, but has no regrets
Wednesday night's game between the Los Angeles Clippers and Dallas Mavericks was a snapshot of two teams at opposite ends of the NBA spectrum, and, for Clippers center DeAndre Jordan, a manifestation of the difference between what is and what might have been.
Jordan was a Maverick for about five days two summers ago, verbally agreeing to sign there before having a change of heart during the NBA's free-agent moratorium and instead returning to the Clippers. He's been demonized by the jilted fans in Dallas ever since, and was lustily booed there Wednesday night. But, though he regrets the way things went down, he knows he made the right decision.
"I feel like anywhere I would have been DeAndre," Jordan told ESPN's Tim MacMahon, after the league-best Clippers dismantled the league-worst Mavs. "I would have tried to help the organization out any way that I could, but I'm definitely happy where I'm at. This is a great organization for me. I've been here all my career, so it's great.
"I wish these guys nothing but the best. I still owe those guys a lot for taking a chance on me. I just wish things would have gone differently."
Jordan had been wooed by an aggressive recruiting pitch from Mark Cuban and Chandler Parsons, as well as the promise of being more of an offensive centerpiece and a franchise player in Dallas. That hasn't exactly happened for him in Los Angeles, where he's averaging 7.1 field-goal attempts per game with a 16 percent usage rate this season, up just slightly from his numbers over the last four years. The Clippers still don't really run plays for him, or feed him the ball outside of lobs.
But Jordan appears to have settled comfortably into his role as a low-usage dive man/deterrent on offense, and defensive anchor at the other end. When he sat down with his Clippers teammates that summer and chose to renege on his commitment, he opted for community, continuity, and comfort.
"When you come together as adults outside of basketball and try to figure stuff out, things work out," Jordan said. "I feel like that's what we did a year and a half ago. It all worked out for the best. I'm happy I'm here. I'm pretty sure that the team's happy I’m here. That's in the past. We're looking forward now."