DeAndre Jordan used Snapchat to call Doc Rivers, ditch Mavericks

To communicate his desire to renege on a verbal commitment to the Dallas Mavericks, DeAndre Jordan apparently Snapchatted Doc River's youngest son, Spencer. (Austin is older.) Of all the incredulous things that happened during that infamous July saga, this might be the least surprising.

"He even Snapchatted my youngest son Spencer," Doc Rivers told Sports Illustrated. "He had told two or three people he'd made a mistake [after signing the offer sheet with Dallas], but the Snapchat said, ‘Tell your dad to call me.'"

Perhaps the most contentious part of the story in the fallout was who called who first. Rivers reaching out to Jordan, rather than the other way around, would have supposedly broken unwritten rules in the NBA. While it seems Rivers did do so, at least he was prompted by his son. Still, the idea that Jordan had to ask River's son -- and not even the one who was his Clippers teammate -- to have his dad call him, rather than hit him up directly with a number he absolutely had, speaks to how strangely Jordan handled this.

Here's how it probably looked, as envisioned by Jason Gallagher.

I personally bet Jordan would have thrown a geofilter on there or maybe a "0 mph," but maybe that's just me.

Moving past the social media twist to that story, Rivers restated his opinion that Jordan did nothing wrong during the debacle.

"I kept hearing all summer, ‘Mark Cuban doesn't like you,'" said Rivers. "I could care less about that. My only care is about DJ, and he's a good kid. After all the complaints afterward, it was the same thing with me. DJ didn't call me when he [verbally committed with Dallas], his agent called me. That's the way the business works. He would have called me eventually. It was the same way when Ray [Allen] left the Celtics. Ray's agent called me.

"Cuban said he deserved a call, but he didn't deserve a call or an apology. He doesn't deserve either one. It's funny how much I hear, ‘Boy, Mark Cuban is mad at you.' Listen, my job isn't to make Mark Cuban happy. My job is to make him miserable. This is why it's a competition. So the fact DJ stayed with us, and I always say, ‘Stayed' and not ‘came back' because he never left, was great. The kid had a right to get this right. It's the biggest decision of his life, and he was able to change it before it was a career mistake."

Again -- no one is saying free agents all owe personalized phone calls to the general manager the moment they decide to sign with a team. River's right; that usually is handled by the agent. But after committing to a team and sitting on your decision for five days, and without expressing these newly surfacing doubts about your decision to the Mavericks or your agent, and after faking a date to avoid talks with the guy whose summer you're about to ruin, and after spending an entire day eating friend chicken with your old team, THEN you might owe Mark Cuban a phone call. Again, the agent couldn't make this call for you because the agent had no knowledge of anything that was happening and by Wednesday, was being completely locked out. Ray Allen's situation (and Jordan's, pre-reversal) was nothing like that and thus makes little sense as an analogy. Context matters, Doc.

Anyway, you get the gist. That's enough DeAndre talk this month. See you in October!

(h/t Deadspin)