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Three days of chaos: the Chandler Parsons story through Twitter

For three agonizing days, the MMB staff, fellow DFW media and fans all had to sweat out Chandler Parsons restricted free agency.

By Josh Bowe
Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Chandler Parsons has been a Maverick for about a week now. For a majority of the Mavs kingdom, that's a wonderful, wonderful thing. Dallas finally landed a player in free agency they actually wanted, when many (myself included) thought they were going to go down the same disappointing path again.

But for the three days in which Houston had time to mull over matching Parsons offer sheet from the Mavericks, it was hell. It was chaos. It was basketball Twitter in all its glory.

We've been caught up with Chandler Parsons on the Mavericks roster, but let's not forget those three days that happened before it became official. This is the story of how Chandler Parsons became a Maverick.

AND WE'RE OFF

After hearing whispers of the Mavs being interested in signing Parsons to an offer-sheet, we get a nice old-fashioned #WOJBOMB to start the madness. There were some talks about a potential sign and trade, but little did we know the hell we were about to go through.

WHEELING AND DEALING CUBES IS MY FAVORITE

There is no better version of Mark Cuban than wheeling-and-dealing Mark Cuban. The Cuban that doesn't give a f*ck and just goes out and signs guys in night clubs. It felt like watching a neutered puppy the last two summers as Cuban had to hoard cap space for Dwight Howard and Deron Williams. This was like a giant middle finger to the Rockets and I ate up every bit of it. It was good to see the old Cubes back.

HAPPINESS LEADING TO DEPRESSION

On the morning of Friday, July 11, LeBron James announced he was going back to Cleveland. At first, this was thought to be a victory for the Mavs and Parsons, because we assumed that Houston was going to then sign Chris Bosh and then they wouldn't dare match Parsons. Except...

Shit. Houston was going to have a super team, a starting five of Patrick Beverly, James Harden, Chandler Parsons, Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard. The West would be swung toward Houston's favor, the Mavs would have to scramble for a Plan B and meekly try to earn another low playoff seed as Dirk continued to age. It was a damn nightmare.

That's when the depression kicked in.

But alas, there was some hope that Friday afternoon.

Would Chris Bosh actually take more money to stay in Miami without LeBron? There was almost zero chatter of that scenario while LeBron was making his decision. Almost every outlet reported that Bosh would almost certainly high-tail it to Houston if LeBron went back to Cleveland.

Suddenly, every Mavericks fan was a Heat fan for about three hours.

OH NO, SORRY ABOUT THAT HOUSTON

I remember I was just sitting at home, refreshing Twitter aimlessly and not doing anything remotely productive when that #WOJBOM scrolled across my timeline. I can't remember ever feeling so happy for the Miami Heat to do anything, but there I was, silently fist-pumping by myself on a Friday evening.

And then the jokes started flowing.

A FIRE RISES

Suddenly, it seemed very possible that Parsons could be a Mav. Why would Houston spend so much resources on bringing Parsons back without Bosh in tow? We weren't totally sure, but we had hope. We had a dream.

Even reporters were giving us just the tiniest bit of hope.

After the Bosh news, Vince Carter agreed to a deal with the Grizzles late in the night. The 3-year, $12M deal was much more than the Mavs $2.7 room exception and Carter took the better deal to essentially do the exact same thing he did for Dallas for the Grizz. We were sad.

But then there were whispers that Mike Miller could be Carter's replacement. Miller AND Parsons? We swooned.

OUR BOSS WAS JUST A GIANT NEGATIVE NANCY

OH COME ON.

(He also got swept up in the giddy excitement of Parsons, don't worry.)

SO TREVOR ARIZA SORT OF DROVE ME INSANE

On Saturday, news broke that the Rockets had agreed to a four year, $32M deal with small forward Trevor Ariza. Ariza plays the same position as Parsons and although it would seem RIDICULOUS for the Rockets to match after the signing, national reporters were still saying Houston might still match.

That was my breaking point.

I spent almost all of my Saturday night going through the Ariza/Parsons ordeal in my head and just tweeting out everything I thought. My friends hated me. We even went out to a cool foot golf course (where you kick soccer balls on a golf course into gigantic soccer-ball sized golf holes). One friend had a snap chat of me glued to my phone, aimlessly dribbling my soccer ball around the course.

I was a mess.

And I was getting worse.

"MADNESS IS THE EMERGENCY EXIT. YOU CAN JUST STEP OUTSIDE AND CLOSE THE DOOR ON ALL THOSE DREADFUL THINGS THAT HAPPENED. YOU CAN LOCK THEM ALL AWAY...FOREVER."

Then, Luol Deng signed a 2-year, $20M deal on Sunday afternoon, with the Parsons deadline merely hours away.

I was losing it. I felt my logic was sound. Why the hell would all the remaining free agent SFs not wait for the Parsons decision and see what they could get from Dallas?

The darkness crept in....

...but we still tried to fight the good fight.

Of course, resident curmudgeon Kirk had to chime in.

Then, word came down that the Mavs and Richard Jefferson had agreed to the veteran's minimum. We pretty much all ignored the veteran's minimum part at first and let the potential of "AND NOW, STARTING AT FORWARD...RICHARD JEFFERSON!" creep into our minds.

VICTORY

Sometime late in the afternoon (or early in the evening) on Sunday, there was one more #WOJBOMB: Houston would not match and Chandler Parsons would become a Maverick.

It was such a sweet feeling that most of the tweets during this time featured expletives from me so I won't share them. I will tell you I was in a bar playing darts when the news broke and I proceeded to prance around the bar, almost moved to tears when I heard.

Now let us bask in the sweet aroma of relief.

It was all so crazy. I can't remember a Mavs off-season quite like this one. Then again, imagine if Twitter existed during Steve Nash's free agency *shivers* I honestly won't forget this summer though. What a wild ride. Madness is exhausting.

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