DeAndre Jordan is a great pick-up for the Mavs. I understand the angst, I understand it’s not the prize it would have seemed some years ago, but it’s still the case that this was a really good move by the team. And it’s not just because Jordan remains one of the better centers in the league, but that there may be no better fits for the Mavericks’ offense.
Think for one minute about the various bigs the Mavs have turned into good, or even great, players solely because of the importance of rolling to the rim in Rick Carlisle’s offense. Think about Brandan Wright. I don’t know that Wright, who always struggled with injuries, couldn’t have made an impact in any of his other stops, but he never really did. With the Mavs, however, Wright became a vital offensive piece, someone who converted pretty much every ball that touched his hands.
Think about Dwight Powell. I don’t want to take anything away from the young man, and I can’t say for certain how much his improvement has been the natural progression of a talented young player, and how much the sheer fact of how valuable a player like him can be specifically for the Mavericks. But Powell went from a guy who was totally irrelevant his first two, even three years, to one of the best rim-rollers in the game. Last year, Powell converted 77.5 percent of his shots from 0-3 feet, which is where the entirety of his offensive value comes from.
Or, think even about Tyson Chandler, who was quietly a very effective player before he became a Mav, and after they burnished his star, went on to win Defensive Player of the Year with the New York Knicks. But Chandler has so far shot around 59. percent from the floor in his career, and 57 percent the year before he became a Mav. He shot 65.4 percent in his first year with the Mavs and 66.6 percent in the year that he came back.
Now, think about what might happen with a guy who has absolutely no need of the Mavs bump, here. DeAndre Jordan is, like all of these guys, a pretty limited offensive player. But one thing he is already fantastic at is dunking the basketball. In the last six years, Jordan has led the NBA in field goal percentage five times, and has shot over 67 percent for his career. From 0-3 feet, he’s at 72.3 percent. Meanwhile, he’s the best rebounder of the bunch – better than anybody but Chandler by a factor of a billion – and an excellent defensive presence. And I’m not that worried about his age. Of course it’s something people do worry about, but 29 (Jordan turns 30 this month) isn’t exactly ancient. Chandler was 28 in his first Mavs year, and 32 in his second.
Of course, there are other reasons Mavs fans might not be overly pleased here, and those are well known. Jordan is still the only player to back out of a verbal commitment of the sort he entered into, in free agency. Who knows what the Mavs might have been with him, then, and they won’t be that next year, although they might be a little interesting. People can feel however they want about this, because how one root for teams is totally one’s own business.
Me, I was never that upset at Jordan, because I was too upset at the Mavs’ front office. Well before the chase started, I couldn’t believe that they’d put the team in a position where it seemed totally doomed if it didn’t sign Jordan, who has never been the kind of building block the Mavs’ strategy at the time needed him to be anyway. But he was, and is, an excellent player, and it’ll be fun to watch him on the court next year.