DeAndre Jordan Comments on Free-Agency Decision, Chris Paul in Players' Tribune

In an article on The Players' Tribune, DeAndre Jordan opened up a bit more about his decision to spurn the Dallas Mavericks and re-sign with the Los Angeles Clippers.

The whole saga has been well documented by now and doesn't need any additional examination. Until Monday night, however, Jordan hadn't gone into much depth about his thought process and motivations for staying in Los Angeles.

An accompanying YouTube video helps close that chapter of the story:

In the article, Jordan writes briefly about his relationship with Chris Paul, which ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz reported earlier this month at least played a part in Jordan's choice to sign a max deal with the Mavericks. Jordan admitted he and Paul become heated on occasion but that it's not a significant issue:

"

I love Chris, man. Chris is a big brother to me. When you play sports, you're competitive — especially when you play them at as high a level as we have these last few years. And of course, yeah, we all bump heads during the course of the game. But we know that whatever criticisms or arguments we have on the floor, they're about one thing: winning.

"

Blake Griffin also wrote an article for The Players' Tribune about his view of everything that happened and some of the behind-the-scenes machinations leading to up to Jordan signing a contract July 8:

"

For most of Wednesday, July 8, a lot of the information coming from social media on DeAndre Jordan's contract talks was pretty far off-base. When we woke up that morning, a few of the Clippers players and staff took a charter bus to a hotel, to meet with DeAndre. It was the business stuff — the pitch, or re-pitch in this case. I jokingly tweeted a photo of Hawaii, and some emojis of a plane, helicopter and a car in response to Chandler Parsons' plane tweet. But the truth is that I was already in Houston. DeAndre had been having doubts about his decision to go to Dallas since Monday.

By Tuesday morning, I knew he was really struggling with it. He really didn't want to disappoint people, but I could tell his heart wasn't in it.

"

While it's fair to take umbrage with the way in which Jordan ultimately handled everything, you can't rake him over the coals for doing what he felt was best for himself and his career. The short-term sting from backing out on his handshake agreement with the Mavs was less painful for Jordan than the long-term unhappiness he might have felt by signing with Dallas.

Plus, he helped create one of the most entertaining NBA stories in recent memory—the whole emoji war, Jordan being "kidnapped" in his own home, Mark Cuban showing up to Jordan's home unannounced, Jordan telling Cuban he was on a date to throw Cuban off the scent, everything.

With any luck, this will be the last basketball fans hear of the whole story until the Clippers and Mavericks meet on the court, at which point the dynamic between the two teams will be fascinating to watch.