At some point during All-Star weekend, it hit me.
I was going from event to event, as you do at All-Star, and catching up with all the other players — some guys I know as friends, but a lot more who I just know from playing against. And at some point, it hit me: Damn. Look at all these young bucks.
It’s not like I was feeling old or anything, but I caught myself a few different times that weekend realizing that I was no longer one of the young guys in the league.
And I also caught myself thinking back to when I was a rookie. That was nine years ago.That was a real eye-opening moment for me. As a rookie, I never thought too much about who we were playing the next night. I knew who I had to guard, but Marcus encouraged me — in kind of an intimidating way — to go deeper. He made it into a game between us. He’d ask me to study the tendencies of players and then pepper me with follow-up questions. Which hand does he shoot with when he’s on the left low block? The right block? Which way does he like to spin? Does he pump-fake? Does he do an up-and-under? In what scenarios? How can you tell he’s going to do it? It was all really specific stuff.
It always surprises people when I say this, but one of the toughest players I’ve ever matched up with is Nick Collison.
I hear a lot of big men say that Shaq is the hardest guy to guard, and trust me … that’s very true. (One time, Shaq almost knocked me out with an elbow to the chest.) But I learned more about the game playing against Nick.
I remember one time when we were playing in Oklahoma City and Nick came into the game. He came right up to me and — super politely — said, “Hey man, I’m just letting you know that my coach told me not to let you get any rebounds.” Then he smiled. He was so damn respectful about it.I owe a lot of credit for that to the Memphis Grizzlies, too.
In 2012 and ’13, we played the Grizzlies in the playoffs. And both times they kicked our ass on the boards. In 2012, we won in seven games, but it was a real battle. Zach Randolph, Mo Speights, Marc Gasol — those guys go to work down low. In that 2013 series their bigs outhustled us. Outhustled me. In that series we went up 2–0 … and then they won four straight to send us home.
After we lost that playoff series, I had to do some soul-searching. What kind of player did I want to be? I felt like I was one of the biggest, most athletic guys in the league, but I wasn’t dominating on the boards.
The next year, I made rebounding my goal, and I took it seriously … like really seriously … for the first time in my career.
DeAndre Jordan, The Players' Tribune
DJ talks about the rookie treatment, his NBA biggest NBA mentor, his toughest opponents, his current protégé and more.
