Before DeAndre Jordan Returns To Dallas, Let's Relive The Great Emoji War Of 2015

Bryan Altman, CBS Local Sports

It was all but over. DeAndre Jordan had agreed to a 4-year $80 million contract with the Dallas Mavericks and was poised to return home to Texas and headline the new look Dallas Mavericks on their road to get Dirk Nowitzki one last title before he calls it quits.

Then, the rumors began to fly. Squadrons of NBA players from both sides were converging around DeAndre's home in Houston making their sales pitch for the big man. Depending on who you believe, Mark Cuban was supposedly driving around frantically trying to find his new $80 million man before he was abducted by a cast of Clippers.

And then, the Emoji war began. Let's relive it as it occurred on the fateful day.

It started innocuously enough, with a simple tweet from the Mavericks' Chandler Parsons.

Then, J.J. Redick of the Clippers offered a retort.

Then, just about all hell broke loose.

According to most reports, Chris Paul was on vacation, but that didn't stop him from joining the fray.

After a while, the rest of the NBA caught on to what was happening and jumped in on the fun, even if they didn't necessarily have a horse in the DeAndre Jordan race.

Paul Pierce, who actually joined the Clippers this offseason, may or may not understand how Emoji's work.

Then, the NBA champs made sure to steal back a little of that spotlight.

Some Clippers, like Austin Rivers, showed up a little late to the party, but jumped right in anyway.

But it was Michael Jordan's JumpMan23 Twitter account that laid down the Emoji trump card on everybody.

And what would M.J. be without his trusty sidekick, Scotty Pippen.

So needless to say, once M.J. did something, Kobe just HAD to jump in and do it, too.

Now, as the day turned to night this thing changed from your typical Emoji war (don't ask what that means) to some Twitter guerrilla warfare tactics from Blake Griffin, who barricaded the door at Jordan's house.

Multiple reports emerged that the Clippers refused to leave Jordan's house until he signed his contract with the team. Then, shortly after midnight, the winner of the great Emoji war of 2015 was finally revealed.

But don't ask Chandler Parsons about it.

Now, for the first time since this all went down, Jordan is slated to return to American Airlines arena in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 11.

The Mavericks have already thrown the first punch and endorsed an animated short called "The Frightened Man-Boy" about DeAndre Jordan, critiquing his indecision this past offseason, and it's actually pretty funny.

Besides that, fans have been waiting for the opportunity to boo Jordan for quite a while and some are already shelling out money for the opportunity to do so.

However it goes down on Thursday night, at least we know that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer have already kissed and made up.
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Bryan Altman is, for some reason, an unabashed fan of the Rangers, Jets and Mets. If he absolutely had to pick a basketball team it would be the Knicks, but he'd gladly trade them for just one championship for either of his other three teams.

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• Los Angeles Clippers
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