The Dallas Mavericks' brain trust may be stubborn about the moves general manager Nico Harrison has made in charge of the team since being hired in 2021, most notably the Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis swap this past February, to the point of keeping him against the fanbase’s will.
As NBC Sports’ Kurt Helin points out, Patrick Dumont and Co. Could see firing Harrison as a concession that dealing Doncic, Maxi Kleber, and Markieff Morris, and a second-round pick for Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round draft pick was a mistake.
“Luka Doncic, averaging 40 points a game this season, being an offense unto himself and lifting the Lakers to a 7-2 record with a top-10 offense in the league, is salt in the wound for Mavericks fans watching their team have the worst offense in the league through nine games,” Helin wrote.
“However, the Doncic trade never happens if team owner/governor Patrick Dumont doesn’t sign off on it (it may not have been hard to talk him into not giving Doncic what would have been the largest contract extension in league history). Harrison can also point to the ACL injury to Kyrie Irving that has him out until mid-season at some point — plus shorter-term injuries to Anthony Davis and Dereck Lively II — as mitigating factors. However, as MacMahon notes in the podcast, Irving’s injury was known and the team had all summer to find a solution (D’Angelo Russell is not a solution), and they traded for Davis knowing his injury history.
“All of which makes one wonder if Dumont has the stones to fire Harrison, in a move that would be seen as a tacit admission that the Doncic trade failed, a trade he approved? Does he give Harrison more rope, hope the Mavericks start to turn things around, or does he go the route we saw from GMs in Memphis and Denver last season, where once the decision to move on from a coach (and GM in Denver) was made, it happened rapidly without concern for timing?”
Harrison did oversee a team that made the NBA Finals after largely inheriting a team that made the conference finals in 2022. His track record isn’t all failure, though he is largely remembered for a city-changing blunder that many feel will result in the Mavs leaving for Las Vegas. The reality is that a Vegas-style downtown area is the plan for the DFW.
And apparently, that stadium will be paid for with the money that was saved on a Doncic supermax. Doncic was in line for a five-year, $345 million contract, and the team wasn’t sold on him being worth that much. Harrison felt Davis was a strong enough defender to improve the team, but he hasn’t been fully healthy, as per his norm. Christie might turn out to be the best piece returned in that deal.
Again, though, as Helin noted, that was Dumont’s decision as much as it was Harrison’s. So if that trade flames out, and if Cooper Flagg doesn’t turn out to be the best player in the class, Dumont has to decide if he wants to deal with the Harrison complaints.
Because deep down, Dumont knows Nico is the fall guy, when it’s just as much his fault that the team is 3-7 through 10 games. Firing Harrison is a confession of Dumont’s failures.