LThe Lakers introduced DeAndre Jordan, their latest addition and Marc Gasol’s new competitor for the minutes in the paint for the Los Angeles team. The inside game also features Anthony Davis and Dwight Howard. All four are All Star players and it will be difficult to have room for everyone.
“Just being able to be on a team like this with guys that you respect and have raced with in the past; going into my fourteenth season has been great to see: ‘I wonder what it would be like to play with this guy. Always. you think about that, “Jordan said.
The new Lakers center will collect $ 2.6 million, the minimum for a veteran, after the Nets traded him to the Pistons along with four second-round draft picks and $ 5.78 million in exchange for Sekou Doumbouya. and Jahlil Okafor. Later he dissociated himself from the Detroit franchise to be able to sign for the Lakers. “The parties wanted to find something that was best for everyone. I feel like they gave me that respect as a veteran player who wanted to be able to compete,” he explained.
Jordan signed for the Nets in 2019. He came to Brooklyn as part of a package with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, who signed under-max contracts to make room for center. “We are no longer friends, so …” he joked before confessing that “we are friends before and after basketball. We are brothers beyond basketball.” Now Lakers and Nets are the top favorites in the ring. “Being teammates or not is not going to affect our relationship,” he considers.
At 33 years old, the pivot is the latest All Star veteran to join the Los Angeles squad. Also of his condition are LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, Rajon Rondo, Howard and Gasol. It will be his return to Los Angeles, where he played his first 10 seasons in the NBA, although on the sidewalk with the Clippers, with whom he never approached a title that he now hopes to get dressed in yellow and purple: “I’m excited to be able to be here and hanging out with these guys and building chemistry. It’s going to be a process, but I think we’re all ready and excited. “