Nico Harrison, the general manager of the Dallas Mavericks, bore the brunt from the NBA world after he traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis. After all, as the general manager, he is the primary executive who sets all trades into motion. Without his go-ahead, the Mavericks could not have traded Doncic. But who does he answer to?
The Adelson family, which acquired the majority ownership from Mark Cuban last year, now has direct control over what direction the franchise decides to go in. According to Jim Jackson, the former NBA player, it is the Adelson family who deserves the blame for initiating the Doncic trade with their refusal to give him the supermax money he was eligible to earn. Jim Jackson appeared on Paul George’s podcast and claimed that Harrison may have become the scapegoat for the Mavericks.
“I like it from this perspective— Cooper doesn’t have to come in and kind of the weight of the world is on his shoulder to have to be able to be a rookie, understand the league, and win games and get this Mavericks team to the playoffs or wherever it may be.”
“But it’s a couple of things, too, though. If you backtrack and look at the history with Luka and the Mavericks, it has always been it’s been some tension, a little bit with Nico upstairs. And when it hit, everybody’s like you can’t do that.”
“But you’ve got to see, you’ve got new ownership. That’s not Mark Cuban. You know, that’s a whole different family. Their background is in casinos. They’re making money in a different way. They’re looking at it from the holistic business side, and they’re like, ‘Hold up. Are we paying 350 million for somebody we can’t trust?’ And Nico can’t make that decision in his world by himself. Ownership has to sign either they go sign off on it if Nico goes to him and says, “Listen, we really need to sign him for 350.” They’ve got to make a decision.”
“And it goes both ways. So I think he got unfairly criticized for it, but he’s the GM. So when you made the Gafford trade, when you made the Lively trade, when you got Clay, they patted you on the back. When you got Kyrie, they patted you on the back. So when Luca comes, you’ve got to take that side of it, too.”
If Luka Doncic had stayed with the Mavericks, he would’ve been eligible to sign a $345 million supermax extension with them. However, according to Jackson and some other sources, the ownership was not willing to shell out that money for Doncic. Hence, they forced Nico Harrison to solve that problem by trading him away.
While we do not know if the Adelson family is directly involved, Jackson rightly points out at the end and says that if the general manager gets a pat on his back if the franchise makes a favorable move, he is also prone to taking the blame for the unfavorable decisions as well. It’s a part of the job for a general manager to become the face of such actions by the front office.
