Nico and the damage done

The Mavericks exile Nico Harrison nine months after he traded Luka Doncic. The damage is done, and the team has now acknowledged the mistake it made. What now?

Good morning. Let's basketball.

On Tuesday, the Mavericks pulled the plug on Nico Harrison's infamous reign as leader of the Dallas Mavericks front office. The deafening critiques of Harrison's disastrous decision to trade Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis last winter returned with force as the Mavericks began the season 3-8 with Anthony Davis playing in just five of those games, Kyrie Irving likely months away from resuming play and the roster's flaws evident every night.

Marc Stein of The Stein Line has been on top of the Dallas story since ... well, forever. He reports that the final straw may have been Harrison's push – alongside Davis himself – to get AD medically cleared for Saturday's game against the Wizards despite continued rehabilitation from a calf injury. Some members of the staff apparently wanted AD to continue to rest; team governor and casino-mogul-by-marriage Patrick Dumont stepped in to keep AD on ice.

Dumont explained his rationale in a brief letter to fans. It's a waste of the PDF upload: there's no acknowledgement of what Harrison did wrong, or Dumont's responsibility in approving the trade. In firing Harrison, Dumont appeased a loud and relentless and large segment of the fandom. It absolutely had to be done, and fans should take it as a victory.

But there's zero evidence that even now Dumont thinks or realizes or acknowledges that Nico was wrong, that it was stupid to trade Luka in a secretive fashion where trusted voices and, uh, the trade market were not consulted. Here's the totality of what Dumont says about why he fired Harrison now. Emphasis mine.

No one associated with the Mavericks organization is happy with the start of what we all believed would be a promising season. 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. I’ve made the decision to part ways with General Manager Nico Harrison.

Though the majority of the 2025-26 season remains to be played, and I know our players are deeply committed to a winning culture, this decision was critical to moving our franchise forward in a positive direction.

I understand the profound impact these difficult last several months have had. Please know that I’m fully committed to the success of the Mavericks.

In other words: y'all are mad as hell, we suck, and that's all a drag, so I fired the guy you told me to fire. That seems insufficient.

At least show some contrition that you let the dude open up a blowtorch on the team's future, and stood by him through an offseason in which, if not for a simply remarkable stroke of draft lottery luck, he would have thrown more fuel into the conflagration.

Here's the upshot: the team is bad and has its own 2026 first-round pick. The 2026 is purported to be real good. The Mavericks don't control any more of their own picks until next decade. You know my feelings on institutional tanking – it just as often doesn't pay off, especially if your front office isn't rock solid, which ... the Mavericks now have co-interim general managers, or interim co-general managers, or something. This means that, really, Patrick Dumont is the general manager. Does anyone think that's good?

And yet: the Mavericks should find a way to maximize the potential of their 2026 draft pick, even if that means deferring Kyrie's return to action and being exhaustively cautious with AD. This doesn't mean that the Mavericks necessarily need to trade AD. I'm not sure they could easily trade Kyrie. (Harrison signed him to a new deal last summer.) This doesn't mean you flip every veteran for picks and prospects. You can try again next season when the odds are higher of having a chance via Kyrie's presence; he really does make sense for a team otherwise featuring Flagg and AD. And again, the Mavericks don't have control of their '27, '28 or '29 picks, and the odds are likely low on getting those back in AD or Kyrie deals. The Mavericks may simply be stuck in Nico's timeline even with Nico gone.

At least the raw emotion will be gone now. Harrison was open about the win-now attitude he brought as an observation of the reality as an NBA general manager. Even honesty can be toxic. He made his job transactional in the wrong way. He was wrong about Luka's basketball greatness, his own brilliance and how to treat fans. He was wrong about the lasting power of loyalty in sports. All that cost him a job, a reputation and whatever sort of NBA legacy he'd hoped for. He'll never buy a drink in Dallas again, because every establishment worth its salt would kick him out.

Someday, Dumont may meet that same fate. Unless he humbles himself and learns how to be a decent team governor – even if that simply means hiring smart and humble people and getting the hell out of the way – the Mavericks will meet further doom. In firing Nico now, Dumont is cemented himself as one of the worst owners in the NBA, a grand feat for someone so new to the club, and an honor it's quite hard to shed.

Scores

Raptors 119, Nets 109 – Toronto has won five of six. Granted, the schedule has softened up considerably. But the Raptors have a couple of quality wins in there and seems like a .500-ish team. That's not an enormous surprise. But what if they just end up competitive with or better than Orlando and Atlanta due to circumstances?

Grizzlies 120, Knicks 133 – You may have heard that Ja Morant is shooting 35% from the floor this season. That is true. He was 4/14 (29%) under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden. It's somehow worse than "he's shooting 35% from the floor this season." He's only shot better than 40% from the floor twice in 11 games, and hasn't done it in two weeks. His average shooting performance is 6/17 from the floor, 1/6 from three. He's also averaging more turnovers than ever, fewer rebounds than ever and getting to the line at a level not seen since he was a rookie.

The shot profile is bad and getting worse given his historical performance: he's not getting to the rim as frequently as before and taking way more mid-range shots. In his best season (2021-22, third team All-NBA) he took 33% of his shots in the restricted area. That figure has fallen every single year. But this year it fell all the way to 15%. He's also just not finishing those shots at the same level as before: he shot 69% in the restricted area last year, and he's at 59% this year.

Is this just an epic month-long slump, or is his mood leading to a disaster of a start, or is Ja Morant cooked at age 26?

In any case, Jalen Brunson is doing great.

Celtics 100, Sixers 102 – It feels like every Sixers game is dramatic. Good thing they have clutch masterminds like Justin Edwards and Kelly Oubre.

Derrick White totally bottled up Tyrese Maxey on those final few Sixers possessions, but no one boxed out Oubre. Huge defensive stand for Andre Drummond, too. Are the 7-4 Sixers a team of destiny?

Warriors 102, Thunder 126 – This final score against an almost full-strength Warriors team is not an insult to the Warriors, who are simply not in the same class as Oklahoma City. It is a reminder that no team is in the same class as Oklahoma City. Which isn't to say no one can beat them in the playoffs – two teams almost did last year. But OKC's highest level just appears to be way higher than anyone else's.

Pacers 128, Jazz 152 – Utah continues to win winnable games. The Jazz aren't good, but this isn't a bottom-5 team. Ace Bailey with 20 in his second start, including three stepback triples and a couple of nice cuts.

Nuggets 122, Kings 108 – Domantas Sabonis is not healthy. I guess he's not going to further injure his ribs by playing basketball, but whatever: he's clearly ailing and the Kings are a disaster right now and yes, they'd be even worse with him in street clothes, but at this point I care more about Domantas Sabonis not feeling bad than I do about the Kings having a slight chance of winning a game.

Anyways, Nikola Jokic is a basketball genius.

Schedule

Very busy night in the NBA on Wednesday. All times Eastern.

Bucks at Hornets, 7
Bulls at Pistons, 7
Magic at Knicks, 7, ESPN
Grizzlies at Celtics, 7:30
Cavaliers at Heat, 7:30
Wizards at Rockets, 8
Blazers at Pelicans, 8
Warriors at Spurs, 8
Suns at Mavericks, 8:30
Lakers at Thunder, 9:30, ESPN
Hawks at Kings, 10
Nuggets at Clippers, 10:30

Be excellent to each other.