Dallas Mavericks forward Chandler Parsons took the lead in this summer’s successful recruitment of free agent center DeAndre Jordan to Texas, and he continues to gas up his new teammate.
Parsons explains that Dallas went hard after Jordan because he’s supposedly the League’s top big man.
DeAndre’s former LA Clippers head coach Doc Rivers led a failed, multi-year campaign for him to win the DPOY award, but Parsons believes Jordan will get his just due in Dallas.
Per ESPN:
“It all came down to him being the best center in the NBA, an All-Star-caliber and MVP-caliber player in this league,” Parsons said in his first public comments since the Mavs secured the commitments of Jordan and shooting guard Wesley Matthews, their other top target in free agency. “No doubt in my mind that [opportunity] was here in Dallas.”
Parsons, who played a huge role in recruiting Dwight Howard to the Houston Rockets two summers ago, said recruiting Jordan and Matthews became an “obsession” for him. […] Parsons has been in daily contact with Jordan since the Clippers’ season ended with a Game 7 loss to the Rockets in the Western Conference semifinals, constantly contacting him via FaceTime and text messages to stress how much Jordan meant to the Mavs while emphasizing the possibilities for the big man as an offensive focal point in Dallas.
“I was basically just telling him that we want you,” said Parsons, who organized a dinner with Mavs legend Dirk Nowitzki, owner Mark Cuban, Jordan and himself at a swanky sushi restaurant in Malibu for the second free agency started Tuesday night. “You’re our priority. We believe that you can be a 20 and 15 a night kind of guy. We think that you are the best center in the NBA, and we think that there’s no other place better than Dallas [to prove it]. […] With coach [Rick] Carlisle’s system, adding guys like me and Wes and Dirk, savvy older veteran point guards like J.J. [Barea] and Devin [Harris] and Raymond [Felton] all around you, we can make you the best player possible that you can be. I think that was the biggest thing that he wanted, and I think he saw that the opportunity was here. I think he’s a perennial All-Star. I think he’s the most athletic, best defending, finishing lob threat in the NBA. He has a chance to be the best center in the NBA the next 10 years.”
