It’s been five months since the Dallas Mavericks made the shocking decision to trade franchise centerpiece Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers, and it’s still a major talking point around the league. The two franchises will be tied together forever because of that single move, which was executed by Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison, who has repeatedly said “defense wins championships” as an explanation for the deal.
Since that trade, the Mavericks lost Kyrie Irving to a torn ACL in March — which will keep him out of a large portion of next season. The Mavs — aimed at Harrison — received boos and protests from their own fanbase where “Fire Nico” chants could be heard rather loudly in Dončić’s return to Dallas for the first time. They missed the playoffs after falling to the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in round, then had the luck of the draw at the draft lottery by landing the No. 1 overall pick and selected generational talent Cooper Flagg.
With the addition of Flagg, the Mavericks’ future is looking far brighter than the one they ended the season with. Some fans will understandably still hold some ire toward the front office for not just completing the Dončić trade, but for how it was handled entirely. However, Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban still has confidence in Harrison as the general manager of the team.
“Yeah for sure,” Cuban said on SiriusXM NBA radio. “Trades are trades. I let Steve Nash go, and the whole town hated my ass for a long time. [Nash] goes and wins two MVPs and I got nothing back for him. Not every decision is one everyone’s going to agree with, but there’s a lot more to being a general manager. Particularly now with the new CBA and the second apron, trying to put together a team and being able to keep together a team is a lot harder.”
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Cuban is of course referring to the controversial decision he made to let Nash, a Hall of Famer, walk in free agency in 2004 instead of keeping him alongside Dirk Nowitzki. It was made even more egregious by the fact that Dallas had just finished a season where it won 52 games and claimed the No. 3 spot in the Western Conference. The Mavericks fell in the first round of the playoffs against the Sacramento Kings, but there was certainly something building with the tandem of Nowitzki and Nash. Instead, Nash signed with the Phoenix Suns and immediately won back-to-back MVP awards.
In the case of the Dončić trade, at least Dallas got a package in return for the All-Star guard that centered around Anthony Davis, who is a future Hall of Famer in his own right. However, with Davis being six years older than Dončić, it made little sense to trade your future in exchange for a few years of contention. Landing Flagg has now extended the Mavs’ future for far longer, though that has nothing to do with anything Harrison did.
In regards to team building under the new CBA, Harrison did note at the first press conference right after the Dončić trade that the team wasn’t confident the Slovenian superstar would sign the five-year, $345 million supermax contract he was eligible for this summer. Dončić shot down that speculation immediately when he was introduced with the Lakers saying he had every intention of signing that deal. But it’s also been reported that the Mavericks were never going to offer him that full contract anyway, and while it’s unclear why, perhaps it’s because of the restrictions that come with the new CBA.
That seems like a silly excuse to not sign a guy who led you to the NBA Finals in 2024 and has as many All-NBA First Team selections as Stephen Curry despite being over 10 years younger than him. That’s especially true when you look at what the Thunder just did fresh off a title run, giving all three of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren new contracts totaling $822 million.
Cuban used what OKC did as an example of how smart it is to sign your major talent pieces right now because of the new CBA.
“You saw what OKC did, which was smart,” Cuban said. “They signed all those guys now, and people are like ‘How could you sign all these guys to money?’ Well, they signed them now because the cap is the lowest it’s going to be for a while, and they know it’s going to go up 10% a year, so it kind of positions them well. Nico’s done the same thing. We’ve got guys — everybody but P.J. [Washington]’s on an extended contract. So we’re going to keep on having more and more room because those contracts are locked in.”
Sure, the Mavericks gave an extension to Daniel Gafford, signed Irving to a new deal, and there’s reports that Washington is going to get an extension, too. In theory, getting those deals done now will be cheaper for them than waiting. But what Harrison and the Mavs are doing is nowhere near as savvy as what the Thunder have been building for years. The Mavericks were several wins away from a championship last summer and blew up their roster by trading Dončić in February. Harrison doesn’t get points for lucking into Flagg and giving some role players contract extensions. That’s just standard operating procedure.
Cuban expressing confidence in Harrison and saying “trades are trades” is certainly a change in tune, as he said in previous appearances after the trade happened in February that he wouldn’t have traded Dončić. But perhaps time passing — and the Mavericks getting another generational star in Flagg — helped Cuban come around to supporting Harrison more vocally now.
