Jean-Jacques Taylor, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Mavericks find their free-agency miracle; DeAndre Jordan will be a brute in the middle

Pigs now fly. Hell has frozen over. A pot of gold really does exist at the end of the rainbow.

The Dallas Mavericks finally landed a marquee free agent, after seemingly missing out on the NBA's biggest names every year.

Hallelujah.

Welcome to Dallas, DeAndre Jordan.

It took four years and $80 million of Mark Cuban's fortune, and Jordan can opt out after three years. But that's a worry for another day.

You can forget about the previous disappointments involving Deron Williams, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard.

Each was a fail. Then again, maybe those failures helped the Mavericks land Jordan. Smart folks -- the Mavs have a lot of them in their organization -- learn from their mistakes.

Of course, all that matters now is that the NBA's best rebounder plays for the Mavs. We're talking about a dude with four games of at least 20 points and 20 rebounds this past season.

Jordan had 13 games with at least 20 rebounds, including a high of 27 against the Mavs in February.

He's a beast on the offensive boards, and not many players, if any, throw dunks down with more ferocity than Jordan. He's a fantastic finisher, whether it's a lob or a follow after a rebound.

He averaged 11.5 points. He gathered 15 boards per game, which was first in the NBA. He also finished first in the league in shooting percentage (71.0 percent) and fifth in blocks (2.23).

Jordan, who turns 27 this month, hasn't missed a game in three seasons. He has a personality that makes the game fun; his facial expressions after nasty dunks and vicious blocks will leave us laughing out loud.

The days of the Mavs' getting bullied in the middle are kaput.

One downside is Jordan is among the NBA's worst free throw shooters, which makes him a liability at the end of games. He made only 39.7 percent of his free throws (187 of 471) in 2014-15, so get used to the Hack-A-Jordan strategy opposing teams will employ.

Still, we all know there hasn't been a perfect player since the day Michael Jordan retired.

Add DeAndre Jordan to Dirk Nowitzki, Wesley Matthews and Chandler Parsons, and the Mavs look OK on paper, though they still need to find a point guard to split time with Devin Harris.

Too bad the game isn't played on paper.

Even so, the Mavs have the feel of a fringe playoff team.

Dirk is 37 and probably needs to play no more than 28 minutes a game. Matthews ruptured his Achilles tendon in March, so who knows when he'll regain the form he had with the Portland Trail Blazers. And Parsons had serious knee surgery in May.

Jordan makes the Mavs' defense significantly better, and Cuban, general manager Donnie Nelson and coach Rick Carlisle must believe he's the kind of player other free agents will want to suit up with, which will make it easier for the Mavs in the future.

Jordan, who has been promised a bigger role in the offense than he ever had with the Los Angeles Clippers, has improved his scoring average in each of his seven seasons.

But it's not as if the Clippers ran many plays for him. Why would they? He scored fewer than 10 points in 34 games this past season.

Also, the Mavs lost Monta Ellis to free agency, and they aren't gaining from Jordan what they will miss from Ellis.

Whether you relished Ellis' efforts late in games and the relentless way he attacked the basket or you believed he was an inefficient offensive player who pounded the ball too much, he gave the Mavs a fourth-quarter option.

Ellis liked taking game-deciding shots, and the two-man game between Dirk and Ellis was often beautiful to watch.

Jordan isn't that type of player. He has a basic offensive game. Expecting him to become a big-time offensive player would be a mistake.

Without Ellis, the Mavs must find a new way to score at the end of games, otherwise Jordan's addition isn't going to help the Mavs increase their win total.

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