The biggest story this offseason was DeAndre Jordan changing his mind on his agreement with the Dallas Mavericks and deciding to re-sign with the Los Angeles Clippers. What made the story extra interesting, were the reports that the Clippers were holed up in Jordan’s house essentially holding him hostage until he signed on the dotted line. Blake Griffin is finally breaking his silence on the matter with the real story, and says we had it ALL wrong.
via Players’ Tribune:
For most of Wednesday, July 8, a lot of the information coming from social media on DeAndre Jordan’s contract talks was pretty far off-base. When we woke up that morning, a few of the Clippers players and staff took a charter bus to a hotel, to meet with DeAndre. It was the business stuff — the pitch, or re-pitch in this case. I jokingly tweeted a photo of Hawaii, and some emojis of a plane, helicopter and a car in response to Chandler Parsons’ airplane tweet. But the truth is that I was already in Houston. DeAndre had been having doubts about his decision to go to Dallas since Monday.
By Tuesday morning, I knew he was really struggling with it. He really didn’t want to disappoint people, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. We text every day. It’s not always about basketball. Mostly it’s about life. I’m his friend above all else. I stuffed some clothes into a bag, ran through LAX and got on the first flight to Houston. My intention wasn’t to go down and sell DeAndre on the Clippers. We promised each other a long time ago that we’d never do that stuff. I just wanted to be there for my friend and hear him out….
By Wednesday morning, when the emojis started flying everywhere, the headlines were: CLIPPERS DESCEND ON HOUSTON. DEANDRE LOCKED IN HOME. Chris Paul ABSENT FROM MEETING. MARK CUBAN DRIVING AROUND HOUSTON SEARCHING FOR DEANDRE.
All of it was wrong. When people were tweeting “Sources: Clippers to meet with DeAndre in the next 3 hours,” we were already back at DeAndre’s house and I was nodding off watching a Clippers Summer League game on the couch. When I woke up an hour later with drool on the pillow, my phone was a bloodbath of notifications. People were literally tweeting things like, “DeAndre is a grown-ass man! Stop holding him hostage!” and “You should all be arrested for this! I’m calling the cops!”
To be honest, the whole thing was pretty boring. It was like a super laid back family party. Some people were watching TV. Some people were playing video games. After a while, I hopped in the car and drove aimlessly around Houston for an hour just to kill time. When I got back to the house, we were sitting around waiting for 11 p.m. so DeAndre could officially sign.
