Cuban meets with Ballmer, clears air about DeAndre Jordan signing
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said he spoke with Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer concerning the free agency saga involving center DeAndre Jordan.
Cuban posted a message to Mavericks fans on CyberDust on Wednesday, detailing his meeting with Ballmer during the NBA owners meeting in Las Vegas.
Cuban says the meeting started off “a little frigid,” but the two ultimately worked things out and cleared the air about Jordan re-signing with the Clippers.
Jordan verbally agreed to a four-year, $80 million deal with the Mavericks during the league's moratorium period, which started July 1.
Jordan changed his mind after Clippers players and officials, including Ballmer, converged on Jordan's Houston residence the night before the moratorium expired. He ultimately signed a four-year, $88 million deal to return to Los Angeles.
Cuban says he has no problem with the NBA’s moratorium and that Jordan’s signing had nothing to do with the waiting period.
Cuban did publicly reject Jordan’s apology to him and the Mavericks, saying “When is an apology not an apology? When you didn't write it yourself. Next.”
Cuban’s full Cyberdust post is below, courtesy of the Dallas Morning News:
Hey mavs fans. So I had a nice conversation with Steve Ballmer, owner of the Clippers yesterday during our NBA meetings.
It started off more than a little frigid, but we both cleared the air on a few things.
I told him exactly what I told other owners, I didn’t have a problem with his hail Mary approach to keeping a player. I understood why they did it. And even how they did it. They got their player back. End of story.
They are still a few unresolved issues that the NBA will have to work through but one I don’t feel is an issue is the moratorium .
Nothing that happened with this deal was the result of the moratorium
The thing about the NBA is that you don’t know which deals are the good deals and which arrows you avoided till you start playing the games
My guess is that we open the season against the Clippers. That’s when the real fun will being.
