When young Jeffrey Jordan decided to transfer from the University of Illinois, it seemed as though that was the end of the strange saga of the oldest son of the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan.
Not even close. Not even close by a damn sight.
There has been a lot of tension surrounding the program — something that only insiders really knew about before today. It was no secret that Jeff Jordan wasn’t happy, hence the transferring. It wasn’t a really BIG secret that Dominique Keller wasn’t thrilled with the program or his development in Champaign, hence many of the things he has said over the last 12 months. Specifics, though, were hard to come by.
Then…today…well, let’s just say, “God bless social networking!”
Twitter and a Q & A site called Formspring blew up today, although not from Jeff Jordan’s feed. Surprisingly, it all stemmed from Marcus Jordan, and then Dominique Keller re-tweeting everything and seemingly (though apparently not) adding his own thoughts. The names above are all linked to the pertinent places, and the important link for Keller’s Formspring site is here.
The pertinent information basically is as follows…earlier today, Marcus Jordan tweeted this:
“Happy to see @heirjordan13 getting put of Illinois by the way… Never tweeted it #Effbruceweber… I would love to schedule a game w/ them”
This was then retweeted by Keller, with an add on the end of the tweet by Marcus, and Jeff’s younger sister Jasmine:
“RT @SASBMJ: Happy to see @heirjordan13 getting put of Illinois by the way.Never tweeted it #Effbruceweber.< FORREAL.!proud of bigger bro lol”
So that would make a total of three times in the span of roughly an hour that “Effbruceweber” was hash-tagged for topic trending on Twitter. Just insane.
Keller then continued his ranting on the Formspring site, complaining about not getting enough playing time to play in Europe but hitting a couple of home runs with the following answers to questions:
“Q: why do you blame everything on Weber? do you honestly think that he wouldn’t play you if you were one of the best on the team? he gets paid to win you know. you’ll never get anywhere if you keep blaming others for your own failures.
A: lol ill never get anywhere you are formspring as a fan who knows nothing of the real game! you will hop to anything anyone in this school says! if you got a new coach tommorow you would blame all the coaches for not winning a championship and while there here you will blame the players. It’s sickening and I hope that feels the empty void in your life. Thanks”
“Q: U think you got a fair shot during your time on the team?
A: what do you think??????”
It’s plain that the contamination of the locker room went far further than anyone really anticipated. The most talented players in the locker room were unable to lead things because they weren’t vocal enough, and the leaders were the role players who thought the only way to make the team better was by getting on the court more than they deserved.
Marcus Jordan later went on to compare Weber to Bryan Tucker, he and Jeff’s former high school coach at Loyola Academy, who, apparently, they did not have a good relationship with.
Now comes the part that is really unfortunate. Keller is very, very close with Jereme Richmond, the do-it-all freshman coming in for the Illini, meaning that even though all of the players have left, the poisonous attitude still may be able to infiltrate the locker room NEXT season. If that is the case, with a player as high profile as Richmond being discontentedly vocal, the entire 2010-2011 season could be submarined.
It is fair to note that the above is pure speculation. There’s not an ounce of proof that Richmond will immediately come in and be a troublemaker. However, Richmond is a noted hot-head, and if he perceives that one of his friends was wronged, that can’t possibly have a completely happy ending.
It is certainly a situation that bears watching as we march ever closer to the season.
—Paul Schmidt