The Dallas Mavericks fired general manager Nico Harrison on Tuesday, an admission nine months later that the widely criticized trade of Luka Doncic backfired on the franchise.
The move came a day after Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont attended a 116-114 loss to Milwaukee in which fans again chanted “fire Nico,” a familiar refrain since the blockbuster deal in February that brought Anthony Davis from the Los Angeles Lakers and angered the Dallas fan base.
The Mavericks appointed Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi as co-interim general managers to oversee basketball operations.
Dumont’s hope for goodwill with the fans never came even after Dallas landed No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg with just a 1.8% chance to win the draft lottery.
There have been plenty of empty seats in the upper deck of American Airlines Center this season, something not seen consistently since 2018, when the Mavericks traded up to get Doncic with the third overall pick.
Doncic was a 25-year-old generational point guard in his prime when Harrison unloaded him for the oft-injured Davis, who has missed 30 of 44 regular-season games since his arrival in February.
Harrison was in his fourth season and had engineered three trades that helped the Mavs go on a run to the Western Conference finals in 2022 and the NBA Finals two years later.
The Doncic trade and a slow start to the first full season without the young superstar led to a stunning downfall for Harrison, who didn’t immediately respond to a request from The Associated Press seeking comment. Dallas is 3-8, and Davis has missed six of the 11 games with a calf injury.
“No one associated with the Mavericks organization is happy with the start of what we all believed would be a promising season,” Dumont wrote in a letter to fans. “You have high expectations for the Mavericks, and I share them with you. When the results don’t meet expectations, it’s my responsibility to act.”
While Dumont didn’t directly mention the Doncic trade in the letter, he acknowledged the vitriolic reaction of fans, who protested after the stunning deal. The Las Vegas-based Dumont and Adelson families, who bought the Mavericks from Mark Cuban in late 2023, were targets of the criticism as well.
“I understand the profound impact these difficult last several months have had,” Dumont wrote. “Please know that I’m fully committed to the success of the Mavericks.”
Dumont approved Harrison’s decision to trade Doncic, which kept the Mavericks from having to commit to a $346 million, five-year supermax extension for the Slovenian star.
Harrison tried to defend the deal by repeating a “defense wins championships” line. But with Davis sidelined by a calf injury and star guard Kyrie Irving still out after tearing the ACL in his left knee last March, defense hasn’t mattered much because Dallas has one of the worst offenses in the NBA.
With Davis and Irving playing together for just part of one game last season, the Mavericks missed the playoffs a year after Doncic led them to the NBA Finals.
The slow, injury-plagued start to this season for the Mavericks coincided with Doncic joining Wilt Chamberlain as the only NBA players to open a season with three consecutive games of at least 40 points.
Doncic’s historic run was interrupted by a three-game injury absence, but the Lakers won twice without him and are 8-3.
Harrison had spent 20 years with Nike and had close relationships with several NBA stars, including the late Kobe Bryant, when Cuban hired him in 2021.
The hiring of Harrison was the first step in trying to restore stability after former general manager Donnie Nelson was fired, then Rick Carlisle resigned as coach a day later. Nelson and Carlisle had been together for 13 years.
Harrison hired Jason Kidd as coach, and the Mavericks reached the Western Conference finals their first season together after Harrison’s first blockbuster trade.
He broke up the European pairing of Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis and got Spencer Dinwiddie, who played a key supporting role with Doncic as the Mavericks stunned Phoenix with a Game 7 blowout in the second round before losing to Golden State in five games.
A year later, Dinwiddie was part of the next blockbuster trade, which brought Irving from Brooklyn. The Mavericks faltered the rest of that season largely because of injuries, but they reached their first NBA Finals in 13 years in 2023-24, led by the pair of star guards. Dallas lost to Boston in five games.
That deep playoff run came in the first six months after Cuban sold the team. He said then that he would maintain control of basketball operations, but that didn’t happen.
Dumont quickly put full control of the basketball side in the hands of Harrison, who saw Davis as a championship-caliber player in the mold of Bryant. Davis won a title with LeBron James and the Lakers in 2020.
Cuban criticized the trade of Doncic, saying he never would have approved it and adding that he didn’t think Dallas got enough in return. Months later, though, Cuban credited Harrison for his salary cap management.
Finley, who was Harrison’s top assistant and has been in the Dallas front office for a decade, was a two-time All-Star for the Mavericks in the early 2000s when Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki was coming of age.
Finley had moved on to San Antonio when Nowitzki led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals in 2006. Dallas lost to Miami that year but beat the Heat five years later for the franchise’s only championship.
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