DeAndre Jordan is changing his mind again.
No, he’s not trying to renege on his deal with the Los Angeles Clippers. But he is leaving his agents at Relativity Sports following a controversial free-agency process in which he almost spurned the Clippers for the Dallas Mavericks.
Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times first broke the news:
Jordan informed agents Dan Fegan, Jarin Akana last week the he was "moving in another direction," per source.
— Brad Turner (@BA_Turner) August 31, 2015
The first natural impulse is to offer Jordan’s agents a good riddance. A lot of people thought that Fegan steered Jordan in the direction of Mark Cuban and the Mavericks, with whom he has previous ties.
But while that’s certainly part of the offseason flip-flop story, Turner does point out that Jordan doesn’t have the best track record with agents:
DJ has now been with 3 agents in seven years, Joel Bell, Wasserman Media Group, Relativity Sports.
— Brad Turner (@BA_Turner) August 31, 2015
All arguments to the contrary must acknowledge Jordan’s musical agents game. At 27, he seems to be a very impressionable adult, one who struggles with big decisions—not unlike a normal human being. This just isn’t something we’re used to seeing from NBA veterans, specifically superstars. Dwight Howard’s previous indecisiveness, along with Jordan’s now, is the exception.
Jordan, to his credit, admitted as much shortly after the controversy subsided while speaking with The Players’ Tribune:
As everyone knows, I struggled with it. It was nine or ten days of intense pressure. Every night I would have a different scenario in my head, of the city and team where I thought I would fit best. I had several meetings with teams and even more conversations with my family and friends. I kept thinking about what it really meant to be “home” and I would go back and forth.
Look, shit happens. We all like to criticize professional athletes, because, financially, they have it better than us—at least they’re supposed to. But there are tons of people who struggle with free-agent decisions of this magnitude, and if Jordan truly trusted his agents, he could have been leaning on them for advice, which, in turn, could have initially guided him out of Los Angeles.
But, even if that’s what happened, the onus doesn’t fall strictly on the agents. Again, Jordan is an adult—the “oldest Clipper,” as he called himself. He needn’t do everything or anything others expect of him—not his agents, not Cuban, not Chandler Parsons. Just as staying with the Clippers was his decision to own, so too was his initial decision to leave them.
On a semi-related note, Jordan, as Turner says, still has to pay Relativity Sports the four percent of his $80 million-plus contract that he owes them. His next agent, then, won’t be latching on to him for that next huge payday. That won’t come for at least another three years, in 2018, when he’s 30 and eligible to opt out of the last season of his contract and explore free agency.
Any agent/agency he signs with next will only immediately benefit from new endorsement deals.
