NBA Free Agency: LA Clippers ready to trade DeAndre Jordan if he opts in for next year
What's the story?
LA Clippers would work together with DeAndre Jordan to facilitate a trade out of Los Angeles should the 2017 All-Star opt in to his contract for next season.
In case you didn't know
With everything's that changed with the Clippers over the past one year - Chris Paul and Blake Griffin were traded - it's amazing how easy it is to forget what the duo, along with a couple of other players, had done to sort of force DJ to sign this current contract he is on.
According to multiple reports back then, CP3 along with Griffin, Paul Pierce, Doc Rivers and a couple of other teams veterans at that time spent time with DJ at his house till the deadline. After which, they got him to sign a contract with the Clippers, despite the fact that he had agreed to a deal in principle with the Dallas Mavericks.
Heart of the matter
Getting back to the present. ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported the Clippers-Wizards trade where both teams exchanged players in Austin Rivers and Marcin Gortat. And in the same report, he mentioned how Gortat's arrival meant both DJ and the Clippers would look for a trade together if he were to opt-in to his $24.1 million contract for next year.
There aren't a lot of options for Jordan. If he opts in, he's assured of his money but will mostly get dealt much before the February trade deadline. What it also does is postpone his free agency by a year, which would reduce his value further as a 31-year old one-way center.
Opting out doesn't help him a lot either. The Mavericks look to be the only team on the market who can be competitive, need a center and pay the necessary money to land one. Even then, it's highly unlikely that Dallas is going to give anything upwards of $20 million in a long-term deal if he were to sign with them.
What's next?
Amongst all the free-agency drama surrounding LeBron James and Paul George, it's easy to overlook someone like DJ also possibly becoming a free-agent. But that's probably because of his age and one-way talent. Irrespective of what Jordan decides, his future might not hold a mix of large money and competitive basketball. It would be either one of them.
He has until the 29th of this month to make his decision, just like LeBron and George.