Doc Rivers and Mark Cuban's beef involved DeAndre Jordan, all of Twitter, and a cage fight threat

For about 12 hours in July 2015, DeAndre Jordan's tweetstorm captivated the NBA and the sports world at large,

fight

ing emojis and quick updates underscoring a wild tug-of-war between two franchises buying to remain relevant in a changing Western Conference, but more importantly he gave us

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, so how exactly did Deandre's release lead Doc Rivers to

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en to

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Mark Cuban in a

cage

match? Glenn Dock Rivers has never had a problem speaking his mind, a highly recruited prospect in high school, he grew into the role of emotional leader while playing. at Marquette part of that role included berating his teammates, even the entire student body when he deemed it necessary in the NBA when words didn't cut it, here he is following the example of Terminator sons in '93.

Rivers then retired as a player and briefly joined broadcasting and became head coach of the Orlando Magic, where he immediately won the coach of the year award and led the team to the playoffs in three consecutive seasons. He also dealt with Discord and may have even created within his team. The team blew a 3-1 series lead and had a dismal start to the 2003-2004 season, all of which led to its eventual demise in Orlando, but after moving to Boston the critics were miraculously silenced. He won the NBA title in 2008 without doing anything small. part of these guys, you know what that champagne tastes like, vindication then Doc and the Celtics dealt with infighting a Celtics fan reignited an old feud with Doc and the team blew a lead in the Conference Finals the four

rivers

were gone very messy for the Clippers Vindication can be so fleeting, this has been Doc's history as a head coach;

He has won a lot in the regular season, but in a sport that places greater importance on postseason success, is he a great coach or even a good one? In contrast, Mark Cuban was just your average super-rich Dallas Mavericks fan, he sat courtside, but he was as pumped up and into the game as anyone upstairs, then he bought the team in 2000. The prototypical 21st century NBA owner, Cuban, issued deluxe suits and boxes for a T-shirt, jeans, and that same seat at Portside kept his Persona 2 fan yelling at opposing players, coaches, and referees, especially the referees. , to such an extent that even his players thought he was doing too much on the surface.

The Cuban sticks seem to be working, the Mavs were finally a relevant team in the west behind the burgeoning superstar Dirk Nowitzki, a talented supporting cast and his respected and knowledgeable coach; However, it is important to note that all of these guys were hired before Cuban arrived on the scene, he simply reaped the benefits and those benefits soon turned sour when the Mavericks failed to reach the promised land of a title. Cuban clashed with his coach to the point that they didn't even speak for years and let the supporting cast drift away even when the Mavs finally broke through in 2011.

I'm not close to repeating it, one could argue that the success of Dallas has largely come about in spite of Mark Cuban, that's what connects these two guys, outspoken personalities whose legacies are built on shaky foundations, the perfect combination of dry seasonings for flavorful meat, they just needed a spark. In 2015, the Mavericks and Clippers were coming off disappointing playoff exits. Coincidentally, they both lost to the Rockets. Dwight Howard, who was a free agent. The Cubans' target and later target of their wrath surpassed the Dallas greats and Dirk had minimal help. La was one game away from the Conference Finals, but led a 3-1 lead, a familiar refrain for Doc Rivers, there was also a dispute between Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan, doubly bad for La, since Jordan was a free agent imminent and more than willing to try the man.

Is there anything more, Chris Paul, than rescinding someone's high-five privileges? To recap, the Mavs are looking for an athletic rim protector and DeAndre Jordan, the most athletic rim protector in the league, was looking to leave his team and was very interested in going to Dallas Cuban. Not wanting to miss another chance to have a running partner for Dirk, he turned to his favorite man, Chandler Parsons, to recruit DJ Parsons. He told all the smoke and how he basically became Jordan's shadow over the summer so Dallas could catch the big fish from him. I think Mark gave Dirk and I as Reigns, okay, this is who we want, so let's go get him, so I'm going to go to Los Angeles.

He was also with Dan Fagans with the same agent, so we're partying together. working together I'm basically his schedule my schedule I'm on him I'm like I'm getting this guy the Mavericks also had a presentation involving Novitsky and Cuban himself this combined with a lackluster pitch from the Clippers motivated Jordan enough to agree to sign with Dallas, think Optics here for Doc, is coming off arguably the most brutal playoff loss in franchise history, DJ is on the verge of calling it quits and it's partly due to the fact that Chris Paul decided he'd rather hang out in a banana boat with a couple more NBA players instead of his own teammate now, here's the part you probably remember a day before the free agent signing period began Adrian wojinorowski tweeted that the Clippers had a delegation flying to Houston Parsons tweeted a plane that is interpreted as a response Blake Griffin responded with his own very inefficient method of transportation Chris Paul joined in and Paul Pierce also did so in the best way possible.

It was all very funny, but the stakes were high. The Clippers went to Deandre's house, locked the door and worked to convince him whether to return or stay in Los Angeles. As the day progressed, the emojis were replaced by whatever nuggets reporters could glean from the rumors, as well as some really fantastic trolling from Griffin Cuban and the Mavericks were literally on the outside looking in, not really looking in as Mark was unable to contact Jordan or even find his address according to ESPN's Chris Broussard, all Mark could do was question the Broussard's journalistic ethics in a way that belied what really angered him after the midnight moratorium was lifted.

Paul Pierce capped a truly unprecedented day with this image of DeAndre signing a new contract with the Clippers, the Mavericks were immediately upset. Parsons said DJ was disrespectful and quoted that he wasn't ready to be a franchise player. Cuban claimed that DeAndre lied to him about his whereabouts. night and used his other social media platform to say that Jordan should have at least called him, so Doc Rivers decided he had enough of Mark badmouthing his player and did the NBA head coach equivalent of writing a distortion song and went on a media tour. That's when things between Doc and Cuban really started.

The first doctor said that Jordan did not owe Mark any correspondence regarding his decision. Later, at a charity appearance in Boston, he detailed the unconventional start to DJ's new recruitment and said Jordan always wanted to stay. It became clear from the clips that even though Doc Rivers knew Cuban didn't like him personally, he wasn't really sweating what Mark had to say, and just in case there was any doubt about Doc's satisfaction, he went on Colin's show Cowherd in September to Tell the Whole World How You Felt. Cuban had finally had enough and went on Cowherd's show the following week to get the link back from him.

Just look at how angry Mark is as Colin interprets Doc's comments for him. Mark claimed that Rivers absolutely had to keep Jordan. to keep their job, it shows you what someone will do when their entire future fades in front of them and that's exactly what the doctor did and I give him credit for it, his life, his professional life was over, brother, these may have been the words of a It hurt a millionaire who didn't get what he wanted, but there was no way our doctor could let those bars pass. He compared Cuban to Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, virtually identical to Cuban, except he had less hair and more collars on his shirts.

He doubted Cuban's authenticity and his integrity. and to top off this very ripe meat he challenged him to a

cage

fight on August 3 at the flagpole wouldn't be enough of a game. This was an NBA coach challenging an NBA owner to a fight and inviting people to see Cuban, for his part. He had been very salty, but he remembered being careless about gloating about the points on television for two full months before he fought back and in a rebuttal he managed to get to the heart of Doc's anxiety. People were questioning his training and his acumen for leadership as they had done in Orlando and Losing DeAndre would have put him in a very delicate situation as Cuban's coach and executive.

All of this had to hurt for several reasons: the Mavericks rolled out the red carpet for weeks to attract DJ, while the Clipper was practically down. -night to get it back two Dirk had taken a pay cut the previous summer so the Mavericks would have more flexibility to sign free agents three this was the closest the Cuban had been to his white whale and not only did he lose but he had it then Lo he lost and had to listen to it for months from the guy who beat him, so Mark Cuban wasn't ready to let anything slide when the 2015-16 regular season opened in November, when Dallas welcomed Doc to the clips for the first time.

Cuban hinted he had lewd text messages with DJ telling him that one day he might free them, the Mavericks got a big win that night and DJ was booed every time he touched the ball after the game. Mark claimed that while that fight had the added benefit of boosting NBA ratings, he was still more than ready to fight Doc, but they didn't after that, the Western Conference was loaded as much in Los Angeles as Dallas had. much more to worry about than a war of words, as Chris Paul said, both were too busy to This fight fizzled out pretty quickly, but both Cooks' words proved prophetic in the first round of the playoffs that spring.

He wasted another series, this time against the Trailblazers. Dirk had minimal help offensively and Dallas quietly exited when Novitsky finally retired in 2019. He stopped in the game so the Los Angeles crowd could give the Mavs' franchise player a standing ovation. Cuban was moved by the gesture, since then the questions about both have continued. Cuban never landed a quality co-star for Dirk before he retired and he's still trying. Rivers left Los Angeles after losing another series lead in the playoffs, moved to Philadelphia and quickly lost another series lead in the playoffs. Enduring continued criticism from former players about his coaching abilities and character, he was fired after the 2023 season after, you guessed it, he blew another series lead in the playoffs.

Mark Cuban and Doc Rivers are NBA champions, but the validity of their success has been constantly examined when they pursued DeAndre Jordan the insecurities about those questions manifested themselves as a brief but incredibly Petty

beef

years later none of those questions have been answered arrived to the end credits look, that's me Chris, thanks for watching my first episode of meat history if you want to hear me talk more about basketball, check out the Skyhook podcast where my boy James and I talk about the WNBA in Chicago Sky. If you want more Doc Rivers meat, watch this video here until next time.

See you at Lake Michigan.