Dallas Mavericks fans have repeatedly called for GM Nico Harrison to be fired following the Luka Doncic trade, but it was reported that he still had the ownership’s full backing. That might be slowly changing now, though, with Tim Cato of DLLS Sports reporting that owner Patrick Dumont is frustrated with Harrison.
“However, those team sources consistently express belief that Dumont no longer sees Harrison as a figure with irreproachable basketball expertise. Most notably, team and league sources say, Dumont has had frustration with Harrison not warning him — or, perhaps even more damningly, being unaware — of the fandom’s outrage following the trade. Those same sources say it had some influence over Dumont’s decision to make Harrison appear for last week’s closed media event, which Harrison did not want to participate in.”
It is rather damning if Dumont had no idea that Mavericks fans would react in this manner. Anyone who is even remotely interested in the NBA would tell you that trading a generational talent like Doncic would go down terribly with the fans. The fact that the Mavericks just got Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and an unprotected 2029 first-round pick in return only made matters worse.
Dumont appears to have blindly trusted Harrison on this trade and is now paying the price for it. He no longer has complete trust in his GM, but the damage has been done. The fanbase has been alienated, and the organization has become somewhat of a laughing stock.
Cato reports that Dumont was the one who made Harrison hold that private press conference on April 15, and others have said the same. ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Shams Charania stated that the GM had been forced by the owner.
MacMahon stated that Dumont wanted this press conference because of the battering the organization had taken from a PR standpoint. Unfortunately for him, that press conference didn’t do the Mavericks much good.
Harrison doubled down on the decision to trade Doncic and added he had no regrets. His responses during the presser just reinforced the public’s belief that the Mavericks made a huge mistake.
Harrison’s stock is at an all-time low at the moment, and it’s unlikely to go up anytime soon. The Mavericks had signed him to a multi-year extension in 2024, but you wonder if Dumont might decide it’s time to part ways with how terribly things have panned out.
It’s not just Dumont who appears to be frustrated with Harrison in the building. Cato reports that head coach Jason Kidd isn’t too pleased with the front office, either.
“While Kidd was understandably frustrated this season with the team’s injury crisis, he also resented the front office’s midseason Doncic trade, multiple team and league sources say, even if he shared some of Harrison’s frustrations with Doncic that led to his trade of him. That Kidd felt he had been asked to reinvent what had been a roster built around one specific star, team and league sources say, led to the midseason exasperation that notably culminated in him skipping a league-mandated post-game press conference in February.”
Kidd had built an effective system with Doncic at the center of it, and the two led the Mavericks to the 2024 NBA Finals. He understandably wasn’t happy about having to change everything after the trade, and it will be interesting to see how a relatively healthy Mavericks team looks under him next season.
