Dallas Mavericks’ Free Agency: DeAndre Jordan’s Stock Falling

Stop me if you’ve heard this one… “The Dallas Mavericks are set to reload this offseason and make another run at the NBA Championship” Sounds familiar, right? It should, because ever since breaking up the 2011 Championship Team, the Mavericks have been trying (unsuccessfully) to implement it.

That brings us to a potential free agent target – DeAndre Jordan. Jordan has already been linked as a target for the Mavs for a while now. He has local ties and has publically expressed interest so it kinda makes sense too. Over the past few seasons, Jordan has made a name for himself as a rising star in the NBA. He’s make almost anyone a better team.

DeAndre Jordan is both a feared offensive and defensive weapon. He’s tops in the league at blocked shots and is among the best in paint on offense as well. But lately DeAndre has been in the news for all the wrong reasons… I’m referring of course to the now infamous, “Hack-A-Jordan”.

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If you’ve watched any of the Clippers games this postseason, you know what I’m talking about and exactly how painful it is to watch. Opposing teams (San Antonio and now Houston) are resorting to intentionally fouling the free-throw inept center in order to gain a scoring advantage against the potent Clippers’ offense.

On Sunday alone, DeAndre Jordan shot 34 free throws. The career 42% free-throw shooter managed to make just 14 of the 34, making it one of the stingiest charity stripes of the playoffs. Whether or not this is a good and useful strategy remains to be seen. One could argue it historically hurts the hacking team more than helps them.

Nevermind the fact this is extremely boring to watch as it sucks the fun and momentum out of a couple of otherwise, very exciting teams. Forget that the NBA may even intervene and change the rules in the offseason.

All we need to see is that this is a weakness in DeAndre Jordan’s game and it’s a weakness that is being exploited at an alarming rate. Two of the best coaches in the NBA are using it, so there must be some merit to it, and even if a rule change happens, it will be well after free agency concludes this offseason.

That’s bad news for DeAndre Jordan who is looking to cash in big on a max contract this summer. That could also be good news to teams looking to overpay  a bit, for a shot at a player of DeAndre’s caliber. A team like the Dallas Mavericks.

The Dallas Mavericks have plenty of their own free agents to worry about this summer, one of which is center Tyson Chandler. Let’s not even get into a debate whether we’d rather have Jordan or Chandler right now. Let’s instead focus on the fact that DeAndre’s value has taken a hit, and his likelihood of availability has increased.

As recently as last week I would have said the Dallas Mavericks have NO CHANCE at obtaining DeAndre Jordan. Jordan requires a versatile offense with a skilled passer at the point. The Dallas Mavericks are missing exactly that. Jordan knows how much his value has skyrocketed since Chris Paul joined the team forming the high-flying “Lob City”. Why would he ever want to give that up?

Perhaps he may consider it if the Clippers play contract hardball this offseason and the Mavericks are willing to show some love both personally and financially. Without a dip in stock, this scenario just doesn’t seem very likely. But with the birth of “Hack-a-Jordan”, the Mavs may actually have a shot. Now the next question is, do the Dallas Mavericks want to risk losing Tyson Chandler in their pursuit to upgrade center?  

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