The truly crazy NBA free agency period wasn’t expected to happen until this summer, when Kevin Durant will make the Decision-esque move to either remain with the Oklahoma City Thunder, or walk to the Wizards, Warriors, Lakers or Celtics (the list of potential suitors is expanding daily). However, last year’s free agency was unexpectedly given a jolt by DeAndre Jordan, the Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Clippers, who engaged in a love triangle fascinating enough to be the subject of a Twilight screenplay.
Amid reports that Jordan had no will to remain Chris Paul‘s teammate, the towering center agreed in principle to sign a 4-year, $80 million deal with the Dallas Mavericks. However, a week later, Jordan had a change of heart, and decided he wanted to remain in Los Angeles, causing him to spurn the Mavs deal and sign an $87 million deal with the Clippers for the same 4 years. After news got out that Jordan was having second thoughts, strange things began to happen on Twitter. Members of the Clippers roster and coaching staff began tweeting out their plans to travel to Jordan’s home in Texas to help convince him to stay, using everything from emojis to memes. Once members of the Clippers began arriving in Texas, photos of the scene inside Jordan’s home began to leak out, including a particularly memorable shot posted by Blake Griffin of a chair blocking Jordan’s exit from the room he was reportedly being “held hostage” in.
The truth of the matter was that the Clippers were being extra cautious, and made sure to surround Jordan so that fiery Mavericks owner Mark Cuban couldn’t get through to him and get Jordan to see reason, and clearly, it worked. DeAndre sat with GQ recently for a short interview to talk about just what the heck was going on in that house.
So what are the biggest misconceptions that people have about the famous “hostage night” where you changed your mind after agreeing to sign with Dallas, and decided to return to the Clippers?
People think there was this huge excitement where things were crazy and I got tied up… Wait that sounds weird. [Laughs] But seriously, it was quite boring to be honest. There wasn’t a lot going on. We had a couple hour conversation, then I said I was going back to the Clippers and then I had to wait there until I signed my contract. But not much was going on. People took naps. We ate. We watched TV. It wasn’t exciting at all. It was boring. I couldn’t wait for Doc [Rivers] and Ballmer to leave my house, so I could enjoy some alone time. I mean my bosses were at my house all day. It’s hard to have fun with your friends with your bosses around.
Read the full chat here.
