Breaking down 5 Nico Harrison quotes that Mavericks fans won’t forget

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In his first two playoff games with the Los Angeles Lakers, Luka Dončić has averaged 34 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. The 26-year-old was an assist shy of a triple-double in the Lakers’ Game 2 win against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Dallas Mavericks are now watching their former face of the franchise attempt to lead the Lakers on a deep playoff run.

Last week, the Mavericks were eliminated from postseason play by the Memphis Grizzlies in the Western Conference Play-In Tournament, putting an end to perhaps the most disastrous season in the franchise’s 45-year history. On Monday, Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison met with Dallas-area media representatives for a 26-minute question-and-answer session. In the news conference, Harrison defended his decision to trade Dončić and said he believes the Mavericks can be contenders again next season.

Let’s dive deeper on five Harrison quotes that stuck out:

Why shouldn’t you be fired?

Harrison: “I think I have done a really good job here. I don’t think I can be judged by the injuries this year. I think I should be judged by the totality from end to end. I think I have a really good working relationship with (Mavericks governor) Patrick (Dumont). You add in (CEO) Rick (Welts), the leadership we have is really elite. You’ll see next year when our team comes back. We are going to be competing for a championship.”

Before the Luka trade, it was inarguable that Harrison’s track record in Dallas was positive. Kyrie Irving’s stock was in the gutter after controversial stints in Boston and Brooklyn. Harrison bought low on him in February 2023 and watched Irving revitalize his career in Dallas. The trades for P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford at last year’s deadline were good moves, as well. The Mavericks won 16 of 18 games to close the 2023-24 regular season and advanced out of the Western Conference without having home-court advantage in any of their three intra-conference series.

Harrison’s assertion that he’s blameless for the Mavericks’ injury issues this season is questionable. He chose to part ways with Casey Smith, one of the NBA’s most respected health and performance experts, before the start of the 2023-24 season, as detailed by ESPN. And it was Harrison’s choice to trade Dončić for a player who was six years older and more injury-prone. Anthony Davis missed 28.4 percent of his games in his 5 1/2 seasons with the Lakers; Dončić missed 19.5 percent of his games in his 6 1/2 seasons with the Mavericks. Harrison can’t decide to trade the more available player for the less available player and blame bad luck when the less available player misses extended time.

Did the anger from the fan base exceed your expectations?

Harrison: “I did know that Luka was important to the fan base. I didn’t quite know to what level. But really, the way we look at it was if you’re putting a team on the floor that’s Kyrie, Klay (Thompson), P.J. (Washington), Anthony Davis and (Dereck) Lively (II), we feel that’s a championship-caliber team and would have been winning at a high level, and that would have quieted some of the outrage.”

Harrison’s admission that he underestimated the connection between Dončić and the Mavericks’ fan base was the single most stunning moment of Monday afternoon. Harrison spent 19 years with Nike. How does someone with such an extensive background in marketing have no feel for what his customer is thinking or feeling?

Mavericks fans have been extremely critical of Nico Harrison since trading Luka Dončić to the Lakers in February. (Austin McAfee / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

There were a lot of ways to measure how much the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex embraced Dončić. Some North Texans liked him so much that they named their children Luka, a trend The Dallas Morning News wrote about in 2021.

If the Mavericks were going to trade Dončić — a big if in its own right — they needed to get everything back from the Lakers. Austin Reaves. Dalton Knecht. Multiple first-round picks. A combination of these players and assets had to be part of the return when the Mavericks decided to move a great and beloved player.

You said Patrick Dumont initially laughed at you when you brought him the Luka trade. What did you say to convince him to approve it?

Harrison: “It wasn’t really a laugh. It was more of a chuckle. I said it out of the blue. As we started talking more, I gave him the reasoning behind it. We’re a very process-oriented organization. Everything we do is without emotion. It goes through the lens of process. Once we had those substantive discussions, he saw the vision.”

Harrison’s line about acting “without emotion” stuck out. Dončić’s status as a fan favorite didn’t dissuade the organization from trading him. When Harrison spoke publicly for the first time about the trade on Feb. 2, he didn’t come across as sympathetic to his heartbroken fan base. A different tactic could have improved his public messaging.

It’s also worth wondering if Harrison can be a more emotional decision maker than he’s letting on. Harrison went from saying the Mavericks were a Klay Thompson away from contending in July to deciding to trading his best and most important player in February. From my understanding, Dončić’s poor conditioning early in the season angered Harrison. It can probably be true that while Harrison was right to believe Dončić needed to be more focused, he severely overreacted by trading him midseason.

You’ve said repeatedly “defense wins championships.” Two years ago, the Nuggets finished 15th in defense. What’s your analysis of how they won the title?

Harrison: “I don’t want to dismiss your question. I’m not concerned about the Nuggets. I feel like we have a championship-caliber team when we’re whole. We are going to hang our hats on defense and will be one of the best defensive teams in the league, and that’s going to be our calling card.”

In 2023, the Nuggets proved that a team built around a singular offensive talent who was not great at defending space could go all the way. The Nikola Jokić-led Nuggets were successful because they were elite at executing in the half court and could defend well enough when it mattered. It seemed like the Mavericks could have tried to replicate this formula for the next five to eight years with Dončić as their centerpiece. He was 25 years old at the time of the trade.

Instead, the Mavericks chose to shorten their contention by trading for a then-31-year-old Davis and attempting to replicate the formula the Lakers used to win the title in 2020. On that Lakers team, Davis spent 60 percent of his minutes at power forward, according to Basketball Reference. The Mavericks wanted to put him back at that position and play him next to their centers, Lively and Gafford.

While the Dončić-for-Davis swap made the Mavericks bigger in the frontcourt, they became smaller in the backcourt. LeBron James was effectively L.A.’s point guard in 2020. Moving Dončić meant the Mavericks felt Irving could be the primary creator on a championship team. Even before Irving suffered a torn ACL in March, that was a big ask of a small guard who is entering his mid-30s.

Kyrie Irving has a player option for next season. What is your confidence that something beyond that gets done before next season?

Harrison: “Kyrie is a big part of what our future is. That’s not going to change whether he opts in or opts out.”

Irving could have a menu of options to choose from this summer. One is to exercise his $44 million player option for next season, which would allow him to become an unrestricted free agent in 2026. Another is to opt in and extend his contract. The third realistic option is to decline his player option and sign a multiyear deal to remain in Dallas.

My hunch is that Irving will contractually align himself with Davis and Harrison. Davis has two more years remaining on his contract and a player option in 2027-28. Harrison has three more years remaining on his contract, which he said earlier this month that he intends to fulfill. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Irving either opt in and extend his contract for two more years or opt out and sign a three-year deal with the Mavericks. Either choice equates to Irving getting a nice payday and tying him to Davis and Harrison for a little while longer.

(Top photo: Joe Murphy / NBAE via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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