Draymond Green is not staying quiet after the Mavericks fired general manager Nico Harrison. On the latest episode of The Draymond Green Show, the Warriors veteran defended Harrison’s vision for the team and argued that the roster he built never got a real chance to compete.
“The team that Nico constructed to go win a championship hasn’t been on the court,” Green said. “So I find it crazy that everybody is gonna act like Kyrie Irving is this easily replaceable guy.”
He pushed back hard against the injury narrative, pointing out that both Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving had been relatively healthy until recently.
“I know what everybody’s gonna say: ‘Oh man, with their injury history you had to think that was gonna happen.’ Well, AD for the better part of the last two years has been extremely healthy before getting to Dallas. Kyrie Irving, since being in Dallas, has been pretty healthy. So, miss me with the injury history stuff and going back 10 years when the guys have been healthy for the last two. So next year if they come back, that full team that Nico intended to be out there, and they have success, then what?”
In the wake of overwhelming backlash and scrutiny from the fans, Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont finally gave in to the pressure and fired Nico Harrison. The move was considered an inevitability by insiders, but nobody thought it would come so early.
The Mavs are just 11 games into the new season and not even a full year removed from Luka’s departure. While most Mavericks fans believe the firing should have come sooner, Draymond’s point stands: the team that Nico built has yet to be seen.
Since the trade, Anthony Davis has played just 14 games for Dallas, and Kyrie Irving isn’t due back for another couple of months. The only player who’s been consistently available is Klay Thompson, who is a shell of his former self.
With that core healthy, the Mavericks might be capable of making a run in the West and validating the trade that shook the entire basketball world. So far, however, that vision has yet to be realized, and the Mavs ran out of patience.
Nico Harrison knew the risks when he traded Luka Doncic in his prime for an older, injury-prone Anthony Davis. His first mistake was betting on Davis to stay healthy when he’s struggled to do that for most of his career.
The only path to redemption now for Nico is if the team he built suddenly goes on a run. Assuming the Mavs manage to keep their stars next season and get blessed with good health, next season could be the one that puts the Mavericks back in the title picture.
There’s still a chance this Mavericks core proves the doubters wrong, but the clock is ticking. With Nico Harrison out of the picture, any success the team has from here on will likely be credited to someone else. That is the brutal nature of the business. Draymond may be right that Nico never got to see his full plan unfold, but in the NBA, timing is everything, and his ran out.
