Mark Cuban: If Doc Rivers didn’t re-sign DJ, his career would be over

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Tuesday that Clippers Coach Doc Rivers’ career would have been finished if DeAndre Jordan hadn’t re-signed with his team.

“His professional life was over if he didn’t get DJ,” Cuban said.

Rivers, along with Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and a group of players, went to Jordan’s home in Houston on July 8 to help convince the free agent center to back out of his verbal commitment with the Mavericks. In a stunning reversal at the 11th hour, Jordan decided to re-sign with the Clippers -- with whom he had spent his entire seven-season career -- for four years and $87.6 million.

Jordan was heavily criticized for the way he handled that saga, especially for not letting Cuban know that he had changed his mind. Jordan eventually issued a public apology to Cuban via Twitter, which Cuban proceeded to dismiss.

“When is an apology not an apology?” Cuban wrote on his messaging app Cyber Dust on July 11. “When you didn’t write it yourself. Next”

Cuban went on to recount over social media how Jordan ducked him, claiming that he was out on a date, when the center was having second thoughts about playing for the Mavericks.

Rivers recently told the radio show that he thought Cuban didn’t handle himself well in the aftermath of the Jordan saga.

“To me, he acted very silly,” Rivers said. “You know, look at the difference. I coached DJ. DJ didn’t call me when he left. Did you see me out in front of the cameras screaming and yelling and crying? I didn’t do that. I was disappointed. I was disappointed internally and I handled it that way. Mark tends to do things out in the open and that’s fine ... when you take shots at DJ, the guy you loved two days ago, but now you don’t like so much anymore, I think basically what all that did is told DJ even more that he made the right choice.”

Cuban said Tuesday that he didn’t do anything wrong.

“I’m surprised to hear Doc say that, honestly, because if you go back and look at the things I said, intentionally I’ve not said much,” Cuban said. “And he said I was out in front of the cameras ... my typical response when someone brings up DJ’s name is, ‘Who?’ . . . But again, that’s who Doc is, I respect the fact that when his professional life was about to dissipate and disappear and go up in flames, they did what they had to do and they got DJ back, so more power to them.”

Follow Melissa Rohlin on Twitter @melissarohlin