If you're an NBA fan, this past Wednesday will go down as one of the wildest days in free agency history. Let's recap. It started with the epic emoji battle between the Los Angeles Clippers and Dallas Mavericks as they pursued the signature of DeAndre Jordan which spread to other players and teams around the league. There were reports circulating that the Clippers contingent that went to visit DeAndre's home was preventing Mark Cuban and Chandler Parsons from visiting him. Then, ESPN's Chris Broussard and his sources shared a "report" about Cuban which caused the Mavs owner to fire back at him on Twitter. Just crazy stuff.
At the time, we said that this whole ordeal would make for one amazing 30 for 30 down the road, but Grantland's Zach Lowe jumped the gun and spoke with J.J. Redick about what started the emoji war.
“I get ready, hop in my car, drive to Houston. At this point, Wednesday morning, the story hasn’t broke. I was under the assumption that by this time there would be something on Twitter and people would be freaking out…. I was already in Houston and just kind of on my Twitter account, scrolling through my timeline and I saw a plane emoji. You know, ‘Chandler Parsons to the rescue, yay!’
And, of course, what really happened on the night they got Jordan to sign on the dotted line.
“Blake and [Jordan] were at dinner the night before, taking pictures, I’m like ‘how is this not on the Internet yet?’ We all met at a hotel, we head over to DeAndre’s and the rest is basically what’s been put on Twitter with, of course, less drama. It was a meeting. It was less a pitch and more just teambuilding as Doc said. That was very short, a very short meeting. We broke out into a casual conversation. I think Doc was like ‘DeAndre we’re staying until 11:01 when you can sign a contract,’ and DeAndre said ‘cool let’s get some food.’ His parents went and got some chicken for us, and Paul [Pierce], [Chris Paul], DeAndre and me started playing spades on the kitchen table.”
Thank you, J.J., for clearing that up because if we had to base our recap on Paul Pierce's piece in The Players' Tribune, we would still have questions for days.
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[via For The Win]
