Clippers Attempt To Lure DeAndre Jordan Back To LA, Spark Emoji Competition On Twitter

UPDATE: Blake Griffin tweeted out a picture from inside DeAndre Jordan's house showing a barricade of the front door.

Don't agree with the furniture layout but I'm not an interior designer. pic.twitter.com/23PNgQB88z

— Blake Griffin (@blakegriffin32) July 9, 2015

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — 

What started as a brief online campaign by members of the Clippers to bring big man DeAndre Jordan back to the team has escalated into a multi-professional-sport social media competition.

Players and executives alike of the Los Angeles Clippers united in a big push to lure Jordan back to LA before his verbal agreement to join the Dallas Mavericks becomes official.

The 6'11" center announced on Monday that he was departing the Clippers in order to join the Mavericks for the 2015-16 season. Among the reasons stated for the break-up was point guard Chris Paul's "constant barking and petty gestures", according to Jordan.

Regardless, Paul, along with Blake Griffin, J.J. Redick, owner Steve Ballmer, new addition Paul Pierce, and a number of other members of the Clippers converged on Houston on Wednesday in an attempt to convince Jordan to come back.

Paul had been on vacation with LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwayne Wade in the Bahamas before the meeting. His initial tweet, showing a banana and a boat, was an apparent follow-up to a photo that surfaced of him and his vacation mates on a banana boat.

Most of the party who met with Jordan had been on vacation following the 4th of July weekend, and cut their trips short to discuss matters with him.

Additionally, many of the players and executives took to social media, sparking what turned out to be an onslaught of emoji pictures to express how each man was flying, driving, or, evidently, swimming to Houston in what may be one of the biggest impromptu "take us back" campaigns ever launched in the NBA.

Chandler Parsons of the Dallas Mavericks, meanwhile, responded to the tweets by tweeting an emoji himself.

The emoji skirmish even prompted Michael Jordan himself, who has no affiliation to the DeAndre Jordan situation in Dallas, to take to Twitter, just to remind everyone how many championships he'd won.

That tweet, naturally, was followed up with another emoji by Jordan.

In response to Jordan's tweet, Lakers legend "Big Game" James Worthy launched a tweet of his own, showing 16 trophy emojis, for how many championships the Lakers franchise has won.

Minutes after the emoji competition began to spiral out of control, Kobe Bryant took to Twitter to inquire as to what was going on.

After being informed of the day's social media events, Bryant decided to contribute a reminder of how many championship rings he has.

Tennis star Roger Federer had a fitting response to Kobe's tweet.

In a further escalation of the emoji bug, Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Kike Hernandez joined in on the fun. Hernandez, widely responsible for the introduction of the Dodgers' "rally banana" earlier this season, had only one thing to say.

On the NFL front, the Denver Broncos got it on the action, showing how many Super Bowls the team has under their belt.

After meeting with Jordan, players stated confidence that he may come back to play for the Clippers for the 2015-16 season.

• NBA