Jeremiah Fears was a 1-year baby still in diapers when DeAndre Jordan was drafted.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s understandable why the New Orleans Pelicans’ rookie guard refers to his veteran teammates as \u201cUnc.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan, who turns 38 in July, is almost twice as old as the 19-year old Fears.<\/p>\n
With Jordan\u2019s age and 18 years of NBA experience comes a ton of wisdom.<\/p>\n
It’s why you won\u2019t find many players who have played in just 12 games this season who have had a bigger impact on their team than Jordan.<\/p>\n
His presence in New Orleans has been worth far more than his 4.4 points per game average.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a village to do this,\u201d said Pelicans\u2019 interim head coach James Borrego. \u201cThere are so many people that go into an NBA season to make it work. To see the growth of our young team, DeAndre had a massive impact on that. He brought professionalism every day. A voice every day. A respect for every drill, every practice and every moment together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan\u2019s presence didn\u2019t lead to more wins. The Pelicans have won just 26 games heading into Sunday\u2019s season finale at the Minnesota Timberwolves. They\u2019ll miss the playoffs for a second straight year. The team may not be any better than it was before Jordan’s arrival. But the young players are.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the big brother,\u201d said rookie Micah Peavy. \u201cOff the court, he helps you a lot. He\u2019s been in the league a long time so he\u2019s someone I go and talk to about anything. Not just basketball. Life. Investments. Anything. He\u2019s been in this thing a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan, the ultimate pro, is grooming players to be pros as well.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the season, rookie Derik Queen was sitting down for a postgame interview after recording a triple double. Jordan told Queen to stand up while talking to the media. Queen obliged. Jordan doesn\u2019t just preach professionalism to the rookies. He was recently seen scolding Herb Jones after Jones got a costly technical foul late in a game. He makes sure everyone is accountable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just always wanted to encourage my teammates,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cWe are an extension of each other. The better they are, the better we are as a team. It\u2019s still a competition at the end of the day because you\u2019re playing for shots and minutes and contracts and all that stuff. That is a big deal. But it\u2019s also a love of the game and wanting somebody else to succeed. When we win, everybody wins.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan\u2019s goodwill hasn\u2019t gone unnoticed. He is one of 12 finalists for the NBA\u2019s Teammate of the Year Award. He\u2019s been nominated for the award in year\u2019s past.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess that means people like me,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n
Then he laughed and pointed towards Fears as he walked by in the background.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tough job dealing with a 19-year old,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n
But Jordan admits there is a plus side to having teammates almost half his age.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey keep me young, so I appreciate those guys,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cAs much as I\u2019m doing for them, they do a lot of me too.\u201d<\/p>\n
That includes keeping Jordan up to date on the latest music. Before this season, Jordan wasn\u2019t too familiar with rapper NBA YoungBoy. Now he knows all about the music of the rapper from Baton Rouge.<\/p>\n
Jordan understands the importance of having a veteran like himself in the locker room.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cThe league is only getting younger. When I came in the league, it was an older league back then. Now it\u2019s getting younger and younger, so I think it\u2019s good to have guys around who can help keep the locker room in good spirits and keep that old school, hard nose tough mentality with the guys and help them understand the ways of the league that they don\u2019t know yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan credits the veterans he had for showing him the way. Marcus Camby was one of the best mentors he had. He also lists guys like Baron Davis, Chauncey Billups, Grant Hill, Zach Randolph and Chris Paul.<\/p>\n
\u201cI listened to a lot of things that my vets said and I kinda took things for my growth and my mindset and made it my own,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n
The players aren\u2019t the only ones Jordan has inspired this season. His coach has felt it too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI show up every day saying I want to be better because of that guy,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cTo me, that\u2019s what leadership is about. Where I\u2019m at, wherever life takes me over the next 20 years, I hope DeAndre is a part of it in some degree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan isn\u2019t sure how much longer he\u2019ll play. He says he\u2019s just taking it one year at a time.<\/p>\n
Is coaching in his future?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to get gray hair just yet,\u201d he said. \u201cI have jet black hair up here. So we\u2019ll see. It\u2019s humbling and cool that I\u2019ve been around this long.\u201d<\/p>\n
He’s been around so long that some of his younger teammates remember being kids watching Jordan throw down all those dunks when he played with the Lob City version of the Los Angeles Clippers. Some even played as Jordan on their 2K video games. That\u2019s back when Jordan was one of the league\u2019s most dominant big men. He made three All-NBA teams and led the league in rebounding twice. He can still jump out of the gym, as he showed in some of the few games he\u2019s played this season.<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s making a bigger splash now below the rim. He wants to see the guys who call him \u201cUnc\u201d have the same success he had.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI always tell them that I want to come back and watch them play and watch them have All-Star seasons,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cI want to see their growth so they can give it back to the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming into the season, Borrego had no clue that Jordan would play such a key role this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI could give you a list of guys in the league that are looked at as potential veterans that you want at the end of your bench,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cThose are hard to find. There aren\u2019t a lot of them out there. I didn\u2019t have DeAndre on that list. \u2026 The leader, the man, the father, the professional he is. I didn\u2019t know that. He\u2019s touched every part of our program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeremiah Fears was a 1-year baby still in diapers when DeAndre Jordan was drafted. So it\u2019s understandable why…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,5498,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":{"0":"post-708265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-pelicans","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-hardwall","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-orleans","12":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","13":"tag-neworleans","14":"tag-neworleanspelicans","15":"tag-pelicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116386816539697290","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}