A surprising contender has emerged in the bid for DeAndre Jordan’s services: the defending champions.
Marc Stein of the New York Times reported on Friday that the Golden State Warriors intend to explore their chances of signing the LA Clippers center in free agency, citing Jordan’s ties to Kevin Durant and GM Bob Myers. Stein does add though that Jordan would have to take a big paycut to sign with the Warriors and that the Dallas Mavericks are still the favorites to sign him.
The Warriors know this has a marginal chance of success, but league sources say they intend to at least explore their free-agent chances with DeAndre Jordan, who is not only close pals with Kevin Durant but also one of GM Bob Myers' former clients
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 30, 2018
Such a move would require Jordan to take a deal starting at the taxpayer midlevel exception of $5.3 mil — which would cost the Warriors more like $27 mil next season. But it has been whispered around the Warriors for months that they will at least explore making a run at Jordan https://t.co/YMkABpbq3v
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 30, 2018
The Mavericks remain the favorites to sign Jordan. Dallas, remember, has created roughly $28 million in salary-cap space and — as you may remember from July 2015 — will make the longtime Clipper its No. 1 free-agent priority when the market opens Sunday at 12:01 AM ET https://t.co/8fVecmD7j7
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 30, 2018
The Jordan hot stove picked up steam on Friday especially with the news that he will be opting out of his contract with the Clippers to test free agency.
The Mavs do have a lot more money to offer the former All-NBA First Teamer, and he seems to be interested in what they have to sell. However, the back-to-back champion Warriors can obviously offer him an unparalleled opportunity for title contention and have lacked a legitimate, reliable big man ever since Andrew Bogut’s departure in 2016. While they often counter that by going small, adding Jordan’s elite rim-running, rebounding, and shot-blocking to the mix would make Golden State that much more unfair (assuming that he is more interested in winning than in getting paid).
