ReportWire

Tag: Nico Harrison

  • Mavericks fire GM Nico Harrison 9 months after widely panned Luka Doncic trade

    DALLAS (AP) — The Dallas Mavericks fired general manager Nico Harrison on Tuesday, an admission nine months later that the widely criticized trade of Luka Doncic backfired on the franchise.

    The move came a day after Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont attended a 116-114 loss to the Bucks in which fans again chanted “fire Nico,” a familiar refrain since the blockbuster deal in February that brought Anthony Davis from the Los Angeles Lakers and angered the Dallas fan base.

    The Mavericks appointed Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi as co-interim general managers to oversee basketball operations.

    Dumont’s hope for goodwill with the fans never came even after Dallas landed No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg with just a 1.8% chance to win the draft lottery.

    There have been plenty of empty seats in the upper deck of American Airlines Center this season, something not seen consistently since 2018, when the Mavericks traded up to get Doncic with the third overall pick.

    Doncic was a 25-year-old generational point guard in his prime when Harrison unloaded him for the oft-injured Davis, who has missed 30 of 44 regular-season games since his arrival in February.

    Harrison was in his fourth season and had engineered three trades that helped the Mavs go on a run to the Western Conference finals in 2022 and the NBA Finals two years later.

    The Doncic trade and a slow start to the first full season without the young superstar led to a stunning downfall for Harrison, who declined to comment to The Associated Press. Dallas is 3-8, and Davis has missed six of the 11 games with a calf injury.

    “No one associated with the Mavericks organization is happy with the start of what we all believed would be a promising season,” Dumont wrote in a letter to fans. “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.”

    While Dumont didn’t directly mention the Doncic trade in the letter, he acknowledged the vitriolic reaction of fans, who protested after the shocking deal. The Las Vegas-based Dumont and Adelson families, who bought the Mavericks from Mark Cuban in late 2023, were targets of the criticism as well.

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

    Dumont approved Harrison’s decision to trade Doncic, which kept the Mavericks from having to commit to a $346 million, five-year supermax extension for the Slovenian star.

    Harrison tried to defend the deal by repeating a “defense wins championships” line. But with Davis sidelined by a calf injury and star guard Kyrie Irving still out after tearing the ACL in his left knee last March, defense hasn’t mattered much because Dallas has one of the worst offenses in the NBA.

    With Davis and Irving playing together for just part of one game last season, the Mavericks missed the playoffs a year after Doncic led them to the NBA Finals.

    The slow, injury-plagued start to this season for the Mavericks coincided with Doncic joining Wilt Chamberlain as the only NBA players to open a season with three consecutive games of at least 40 points.

    Doncic’s historic run was interrupted by a three-game injury absence, but the Lakers won twice without him and are 8-3.

    Harrison had spent 20 years with Nike and had close relationships with several NBA stars, including the late Kobe Bryant, when Cuban hired him in 2021.

    The hiring of Harrison was the first step in trying to restore stability after former general manager Donnie Nelson was fired, then Rick Carlisle resigned as coach a day later. Nelson and Carlisle had been together for 13 years.

    Harrison hired Jason Kidd as coach, and the Mavericks reached the Western Conference finals their first season together after Harrison’s first blockbuster trade.

    He broke up the European pairing of Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis and got Spencer Dinwiddie, who played a key supporting role with Doncic as the Mavericks stunned Phoenix with a Game 7 blowout in the second round before losing to Golden State in five games.

    A year later, Dinwiddie was part of the next blockbuster trade, which brought Irving from Brooklyn. The Mavericks faltered the rest of that season largely because of injuries, but they reached their first NBA Finals in 13 years in 2023-24, led by the pair of star guards. Dallas lost to Boston in five games.

    That deep playoff run came in the first six months after Cuban sold the team. He said then that he would maintain control of basketball operations, but that didn’t happen.

    Dumont quickly put full control of the basketball side in the hands of Harrison, who saw Davis as a championship-caliber player in the mold of Bryant. Davis won a title with LeBron James and the Lakers in 2020.

    Cuban criticized the trade of Doncic, saying he never would have approved it and adding that he didn’t think Dallas got enough in return. Months later, though, Cuban credited Harrison for his salary cap management.

    Finley, who was Harrison’s top assistant and has been in the Dallas front office for a decade, was a two-time All-Star for the Mavericks in the early 2000s when Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki was coming of age.

    Finley had moved on to San Antonio when Nowitzki led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals in 2006. Dallas lost to Miami that year but beat the Heat five years later for the franchise’s only championship.

    ___

    AP NBA: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NBA

    Source link

  • Jason Kidd after the firing of Nico Harrison: “We have to move forward”

    DALLAS

    The Dallas Mavericks have experienced a momentous 24 hours, firing general manger Nico Harrison, a divisive figure among fans, to put it politely.

    Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd, joined by players PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford, talked about the dismissal of the former Nike executive Wednesday.

    Kidd talked about how the anti-Harrison sentiment affected the team, specifically some of the “Fire Nico” chants that went on during Mavs players’ free throws.

    “We can only hope that we don’t have to go through that again, because it was a little disrespectful, because the guys are playing hard, and they’re trying to win, but that chant when we’re shooting free throws is very disrespectful, but understanding that they got their point across, the fans, but we have to move forward. I understand the healing process for the fans, but these guys are playing hard. Ever since the trade, these guys have given everything,” said Kidd, “We got over, I think, $100 million sitting on the sideline, and we’re still competing. We’re still in games, and we’re learning how to win. So I would hope that we start to get a little credit for that.”

    Kidd also pointed out that it was important for players to feel support, not disrespect, from fans.

    “These guys, they can hear those things, and they feel really disrespected, and it’s hard to keep guys here in this league when they start to think that the home team is not home, and it becomes a visiting place and so hopefully that changes.”

    Washington who had previously complained about the chants, which happened when he was at the free-throw line, talked about how he hopes fans move forward.

    “I felt the same way [as Kidd], I felt like people weren’t really cheering us on, it felt like from a player standpoint. So hopefully that changes,” said Washington. We’ll see tonight; hopefully everybody starts cheering up and be quiet during free throws.”

    Kidd also talked about how hard it was to lose someone you had worked with.

    “Yesterday was a tough day for everyone, for the organization, anytime you lose someone because you’ve spent the last four years, but it’s tough. But I think when you look at the NBA, season keeps going, we have to continue to push forward,” said Kidd.

    Gafford spoke on how the team moves forward and the firing of Harrison and what the team’s mentality is.

    “I think, just like the outlook of it for the team, it’s just the business of basketball, and when it comes to that, our main focus right now is just the basketball side of it. We can’t really focus on just whatever goes on behind the scenes, and all the stuff that goes on, the front office stuff. We got games to win at the end of the day. We’ve had a bit of an up-and-down beginning of the season, so our main focus right now is just coming out, just playing hard, just winning basketball games for sure,” said Gafford.

    Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram

    Lawrence Dow

    Fort Worth Star-Telegram

    Lawrence Dow is a digital sports reporter from Philadelphia. He graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from USC. He’s passionate about movies and is always looking for a great book. He covers the Texas Rangers and other sports.

    Lawrence Dow

    Source link

  • Dallas Mavericks fans spent months rebelling against the man who traded Luka Dončić. The team just fired the embattled GM

    (CNN) — The Dallas Mavericks fired general manager Nico Harrison on Tuesday, dismissing the man who traded away fan-favorite Luka Dončić in one of the most shocking NBA trades in recent memory.

    Mavs fans essentially rebelled against Harrison in the months after the early February trade, chanting, “Fire Nico!” at every opportunity. Harrison became something akin to Public Enemy No. 1 in Dallas, even after lucking into the top pick in the 2025 NBA Draft and drafting Duke star Cooper Flagg.

    In a letter to fans, owner Patrick Dumont said the current state of the organization is not in line with the expectations fans have set for the Mavs.

    “No one associated with the Mavericks organization is happy with the start of what we all believed would be a promising season,” Dumont wrote. “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.”

    He added, “I know our players are deeply committed to a winning culture, this decision was critical to moving our franchise forward in a positive direction.”

    The organization announced Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi will serve as co-interim general managers while a permanent replacement is sought.

    The Dončić trade ended up ushering in one of the bleakest stretches for any NBA team in recent memory. On February 1, the Mavericks sent Dončić, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris to the Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and the Lakers’ 2029 first-round draft pick.

    In the period after the deal, the Mavericks went 14-21, lost Anthony Davis – the main player Dallas received in return for Dončić – for weeks due to injury in his first game with the team, lost talisman Kyrie Irving to a season-ending ACL injury and watched a slew of other players go down hurt. Davis returned as the Mavs tried to win a spot in the NBA playoffs through the play-in round but ultimately fell short.

    During that entire time, the fans demanded Harrison be fired and pundits declared that the Mavericks had just made a potentially franchise killing move. Dončić is just 26 years old, led the team to the NBA Finals in the 2023-24 season, had been named All-NBA each year he had been in the league and was entering his prime. All reporting around the deal indicated that Dončić never planned to leave Dallas, and his emotional return to Texas in April indicated that the pain of the surprise move still pained him.

    The 26-year-old told ESPN that he threw and cracked his phone when he first heard about the trade, adding that he felt “sadness mostly” and that he “felt like my heart was broken, honestly.”

    Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic reacts while watching a tribute video before first game in Dallas after the trade. Credit: Kevin Jairaj/Imagn Images / Reuters via CNN Newsource

    In his end-of-season news conference, Harrison said he was surprised by the city’s depth of feeling for Dončić.

    “I did know that Luka was important to the fanbase,” Harrison told reporters during his season-ending news conference. “I didn’t quite know to what level.”

    At the time, Harrison remained staunch in his belief that Dallas has the makings of a winning team despite the trade and fan backlash.

    “We feel that’s a championship-caliber team and we would have been winning at a high level and that would have quieted some of the outrage,” Harrison said, adding that being healthy is the only thing keeping the team from challenging for a title. “And so unfortunately we weren’t able to do that, so it just continued to go on and on.”

    But how the franchise handled the Dončić trade and its immediate aftermath sealed Harrison’s fate in the minds of many Mavs fans.

    Dallas Mavericks fans hold up a sign referring to Mavs general manager Nico Harrison during the game against the Sacramento Kings at American Airlines Center on February 10. Credit: Tim Heitman / Getty Images via CNN Newsource

    One of the things that particularly irked fans was a report after the trade that slammed Dončić’s conditioning, with ESPN citing sources inside the franchise revealing frustration with his diet. The treatment of a player who was widely revered as an icon in Dallas, especially less than a year after an NBA Finals appearance, went over like a ton of bricks.

    “Everyone wants to point at Luka’s flaws, at least for a half-second,” Mavs fan Matthew Slovak told CNN. “The overwhelming narrative is that this is the most ridiculous thing ever, but there was that, ‘Yeah, but.’ There is no ‘yeah, but.’ – this is the most indefensible trade of all time.”

    In his letter, Dumont emphasized that he understood the frustrations of the fans.

    “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,” he wrote.

    “Thank you for your support, thank you for holding us accountable, and thank you for your passion and for your patience. You deserve transparency and a team that reflects your spirit. Our goal is to return winning basketball to Dallas and win championships. Our family is committed to that mission and to continuing to invest in Dallas and the Mavericks’ future.”

    CNN’s Ben Morse and Andy Scholes contributed to this report.

    Kyle Feldscher and CNN

    Source link