The New Orleans Pelicans attempted to defend Dallas Mavericks center DeAndre Jordan, well, the way he should be defended on Wednesday night.
The problem is, not everything seemed to be in order:
Bold strategy giving DeAndre Jordan a WIDE OPEN lane š¤·āāļø
(via @NBATV)pic.twitter.com/OM3stHCUTL
ā Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) December 27, 2018
They may as well have rolled out the red carpet for him,
Jordan is a player who deserves a heck of a lot of credit for his offensive improvement this year.
While his offensive repertoire is still very limited (no one is going to mistake him for Karl-Anthony Towns), he has shown dramatic improvement from the free-throw line this season, making 70.8 percent of his foul shots.
That means opposing teams can no longer intentionally hack Jordan and put him at the foul line, and now, wrap-ups before he gets up to dunk the basketball are no longer as feasible.
Overall, Jordan is averaging 11.1 points, 14.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game this year while shooting 62.2 percent from the floor.
The 30-year-old, who played his collegiate basketball at Texas A&M University, was originally selected by the Los Angeles Clippers in the second round (35th pick overall) of the 2008 NBA Draft.
He had a quiet rookie campaign, registering just 4.3 points and 4.5 boards in 53 games, and it wasn't until his third year in the league that he became a full-time starter for the Clippers.
Jordan didn't really bust out until the 2013-14 season, when he averaged his first double-double with 10.4 points and a league-leading 13.6 rebounds per game.
He made one All-Star team with Los Angeles, with the appearance coming during the 2016-17 campaign.
Jordan played the first 10 years of his career with the Clippers before signing with the Mavericks this past summer.
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