Nico Harrison blew it. Let’s start there, with the obvious. When the then-Mavericks general manager traded Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers last February, the move was so inconceivable that the guy who broke the news to the shocked basketball-loving world had to qualify it on social media by posting “yes, this is real.”
That kind of universal bewilderment is what happens when you flip a beloved in-his-prime face of the franchise, a guy who was 25 years old at the time and had made first team All-NBA in five straight seasons, for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and one measly first-round pick. With apologies to AD, at least get some magic beans if you’re going to get swindled in a swap that bad.
Mavericks fans were understandably apoplectic. “Fire Nico” chants immediately broke out in Dallas — a rallying cry that continued unabated up through Monday evening, when the rightfully disgruntled faithful chanted it after the Mavs blew a 13-point lead at home in a loss to the Bucks, dropping Dallas’s record to 3-8. Only the lowly Pelicans have been worse in the Western Conference.
Fire Nico. Nine months after the unthinkable trade, that is what the Mavericks have done. Luka is thriving in Los Angeles with the Lakers. Dallas is limping along, hoping to get Kyrie Irving back from an ACL injury to right a ship that has taken on so much water the season might already be sunk. And so Harrison was pushed out to walk the plank, tossed overboard due to an inadvisable and indefensible mistake.
Strike that. It should have been indefensible. Except after Harrison’s egregious error, Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont contorted himself into all kinds of uncomfortable positions to defend the decision. His post-trade spin was as baffling as the move itself.
Dumont had not been in charge for long at that point. Former Mavericks owner Mark Cuban sold a majority stake in the franchise to casino magnate Miriam Adelson in late 2023. The initial idea was that Cuban would remain in charge of basketball decisions while the new partnership worked to bring a new arena to Dallas and legalized gambling to Texas. At least that’s what Cuban thought. He thought wrong. Before long, Cuban was marginalized and Dumont, Adelson’s son-in-law and the team’s new governor, assumed control. Whatever you think about Cuban, it seems safe to assume he would not have signed off on trading Luka. Dumont did.
After giving Harrison the OK to alienate the Mavericks loyal fan base and make a huge mess, Dumont attempted to clean it up in an interview with the Dallas Morning News. He could not have botched it worse.
Dumont took tacit shots at Dončić, saying that “the greats of the league” were players who “worked really hard, every day, with a singular focus to win.” To underscore this point, he rattled off several Hall of Famers including Shaquille O’Neal, whose talent was never questioned but whose work ethic and seriousness frequently were. Dumont was quickly pilloried for his lack of institutional NBA knowledge. Then he made it worse by implying Dončić was loafing when he said “if you want to take a vacation, don’t do it with us.” For good measure, he completed the PR disaster by claiming he and his family were “big Luka fans” who “really sympathize with all of our fans who feel hurt.”
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It was a masterclass in what not to say, something that should be studied by all new governors who come after him, lest they step on the same avoidable rakes. And now Dumont, who not only empowered Harrison to bundle Dončić off to L.A. but also loudly stumped on his behalf, has decided that Harrison has to go because that thing he did that Dumont allowed him to do has failed in spectacular fashion. The whole thing could not be more Hot Dog Guy meme if it tried.
There was all kinds of speculation about why Harrison did it — from a whisper campaign about Dončić being out of shape to the Mavericks not wanting to pay him the $345 million super max he was in line for to simply not getting along well with his former superstar — but he was a big boy who made a massive grown man’s mistake. As a professional basketball executive, Harrison should have known better. Dumont evidently did not know better. That’s even more concerning.
Dumont can perhaps be excused for being a rich guy who was out of his depth in a new sports environment where he did not know what he did not know. That happens all the time. What is less excusable than the glaring lack of basketball knowledge was how badly he fumbled the public relations aspect. At its core, the NBA is an entertainment business. It should have been fairly easy to discern that the best way to keep your customers happy so they keep gobbling up tickets and merch and the product you’re selling is to retain your wildly popular 20-something superstar and employ him in Dallas in perpetuity. Less intuitive would be air mailing him to Los Angeles.
The Mavericks have installed executives Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi to lead basketball operations in the interim while launching a “comprehensive” search for a permanent replacement. (Finley is a Mavericks legend who, as an executive, is best known for being a postgame beer buzzkill.) Maybe they’ll do a better job. Hard to imagine them being worse. But even if they make smart basketball decisions, the franchise still has a long way to go to win back the fan base that they alienated when they put this whole regrettable debacle in motion.
On Tuesday, the Mavericks issued an open letter from Dumont to the fans. In it, Dumont concedes that “no one associated with the Mavericks organization is happy with the start of what we all believed would be a promising season.” As a result of not meeting expectations, Dumont said “it’s my responsibility to act” and consequently “part ways with general manager Nico Harrison.”
Dumont concluded by thanking fans for their passion, their patience (lol) and for “holding us accountable.” “Our goal,” Dumont continued, “is to return winning basketball to Dallas and win championships. Our family is committed to that mission and to continuing to invest in Dallas and the Mavericks’ future.”
Considering how Dumont’s mission has gone so far, Mavs fans can be forgiven if they’re a bit skeptical.
