Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[SleepingHero]

https://x.com/JonahJavad/status/1910152015675531391

@JonahJavad
Mavs GM Nico Harrison exits, after Luka Doncic scores 45 points in the Lakers 112-97 win over the Mavericks in Dallas

[SleepingHero]

@townbrad
Doncic on ESPN, introspective, as we’ve rarely heard him:

“When I was watching that video I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m playing this game.’”

[FireNicoHarrison]

I hope all of those bodyguards will be enough...

[hakeemfaan]

Mediocrity Treadmill was the worst term invented by Cuban. The feeling of doom that you are good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to take the next step.

No. That is not mediocrity. That is a high level of play that players who did make deep playoff runs never got proper credit for.

We will now see what mediocrity really is over the next half a decade. Being bad and not having our picks either. Forget not having them. We are even doing swaps later this decade with OKC and SA. Welcome to basketball hell.

What this game did tell me is this. I don’t care if we suck. I don’t care that Lively was exposed a bit today. I want Lively, Gafford, PJ and Naji unless we get really too good to turn down offers for them. They all have the dog in them. Yes they have warts and can be exposed but they play hard and don’t back down. Once Nico is let go, I will pay to go watch players who fight and have pride.

Ad is who I said he was the day the trade was made. A talented player who has never been an alpha and doesn’t have the fight in him that the afore mentioned players have.

[Moviemavguy]

  jurassic park.jpeg (Size: 6.6 KB / Downloads: 192)

[Radical Mavs]

@townbrad
Doncic on ESPN, introspective, as we’ve rarely heard him:

“When I was watching that video I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m playing this game.’”

https://x.com/NBATV/status/1910116466579431753

We all know this is business... But MAN... How people can do this thing to a kid? This is just wrong man. I know this is all old news now... But man. I feel it too 

[hakeemfaan]

https://x.com/NBATV/status/1910116466579431753

We all know this is business... But MAN... How people can do this thing to a kid? This is just wrong man. I know this is all old news now... But man. I feel it too 

Nico didn’t care about Luka. Dumont didn’t.  In fact they were both arrogant and flippant about him. Rick Welts who more than anyone should know what a transcendent star means to a fan base expressed surprise at the reaction of the fan base. Really Rick?

What it tells me is that a lot of very successful men have become so only because they were in the right place at the right time. All 3 seem clueless and 2 of the 3 are supposed to be basketball experts and the 3rd is an owner of a billion dollar business who had no clue of the enormous value that one great player could bring to his billion dollar business.

[ThisIStheYear]

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the fans have revolted. How would the Chicago fan base have reacted if the Bulls had traded a 25 year old Jordan, when he was still trying to prove he could win a title, for say a still good but aging Kevin McHale. It would have been a riot. The Mavs leadership were idiotic. I’m glad they’re losing 100s of millions over this. I wish it were more. I hope it continues until they acquire a young superstar worthy of the fans.

[MarkAguirreWrathofGod]

Nico didn’t care about Luka. Dumont didn’t.  In fact they were both arrogant and flippant about him. Rick Welts who more than anyone should know what a transcendent star means to a fan base expressed surprise at the reaction of the fan base. Really Rick?

What it tells me is that a lot of very successful men have become so only because they were in the right place at the right time. All 3 seem clueless and 2 of the 3 are supposed to be basketball experts and the 3rd is an owner of a billion dollar business who had no clue of the enormous value that one great player could bring to his billion dollar business.

I read a tweet from Kyle Van Noy (yes the football player) right after the trade went down.  Didn’t name Welts but said “the guy they just hired, who gets his tentacles into every place he goes.” Or something like that. Implying that Welts was a league plant and he “brokered the deal,” for the league office. Interesting in that he was hired and Luka was suddenly gone like a month later.

[omahen]

Which is absolutely insane.

Sure it's great he wants to trust his employees and defers to "expertise"... But you still need to be SOMEWHAT aware of the situation at hand yourself. Or else you get yourself into a situation like this, where an employee singlehandedly (*supposedly) tanked a multi-billion dollar franchise overnight and eroded the trust of the entire fanbase. 

I truly hope this costs the team hundreds of millions of dollars. Its a pittance of what this action truly represented. Dumont, if he has even a modicum of intelligence, should recognize just how big this blew up in their faces and should fix this sooner than later. Because under his watch and in less than 13 months, he absolutely ruined this team the likes we've never seen before in sports history.

Totally agree. This screams incompetence to me. Looks like "married into money" doesn't have a clue and just finds people to run things he should run. No wonder he is not successful, as I have seen some news that his main business is also not doing great under his leadership. 

I have said this at the time of trade (leaving aside the "what ifs and could bes" on the competitive side) - every reasonable person could predict the backlash and especially loss of revenue the trade will bring. 

I mean, Nico himself was so affraid of all the implications of trading Luka, that he rather did it in complete silence. Luka has far higher market value than AD. How the hell did Nico convince Dumont this will not happen and how did Dumont buy those arguments??? I would really like to see this information. Or he didn't even bother to ask, because all of the discussion was about the competitive side?

[FireNicoHarrison]

It is simply not credible that a property dedicated to accumulating money would agree to exchange the largest market asset of the decade...I can understand that you don't want to believe the truth because it's really disgusting but it's personal interests..

There's more and we'll know in a few years.

[hakeemfaan]

It is simply not credible that a property dedicated to accumulating money would agree to exchange the largest market asset of the decade...I can understand that you don't want to believe the truth because it's really disgusting but it's personal interests..

There's more and we'll know in a few years.

We will never know the truth because it would destroy the league.  

For all the fans who say that Silver had no power to do anything, unlike NO when Stern had taken charge of the franchise, all I will say is this. Let’s say Silver really didn’t know. If the situation was reversed and Silver saw a trade proposal come through to inexplicably trade a 25 year old generational star from the Lakers to the Mavs for pennies on the dollar, he would be calling all the NBA lawyers for an immediate midnight conference call figuring out a way to block it temporarily until he could kill it permanently.

[F Gump]

We will never know the truth because it would destroy the league.  

For all the fans who say that Silver had no power to do anything, unlike NO when Stern had taken charge of the franchise, all I will say is this. Let’s say Silver really didn’t know. If the situation was reversed and Silver saw a trade proposal come through to inexplicably trade a 25 year old generational star from the Lakers to the Mavs for pennies on the dollar, he would be calling all the NBA lawyers for an immediate midnight conference call figuring out a way to block it temporarily until he could kill it permanently.

Any assertion that the NBA/Silver could (and might) stop a trade for non-CBA reasons is pure nonsense.

The league operates within the limits of negotiated and bargained-for, very well-defined, and fully-enforceable legal agreements, and the NBA itself (ie, Silver the Commissioner) does not have the power some think it does. The CBA with the players, the Covenants and ByLaws with the individual owners, etc, define the NBA's power, and those would be violated (and make the league subject to MASSIVE lawsuits) if they rejected a trade for any reason other than it failed to conform with the written, negotiated trade rules.

The Chris Paul trade is often cited as a precedent of the league voiding a trade for arbitrary reasons, but it was not. The NBA did not step in and reject that deal (even though many mistakenly believed that was what happened). Instead, it was the ownership of NO who decided they did not want to do it.

The Lakers won this trade because they were smart and eager to take advantage of the stupidness of Nico, and because Nico is a buffoon as a GM, a naive non-expert thinking he's smarter and wiser than he actually is. He has no clue how to evaluate player value and negotiate to win a deal. LA saw a sucker and suckered him. And because we have a foolish Mavs ownership group who stupidly gave the control of the Mavs to such an idiot who was so stupid as to get suckered like that.

[cow]

It wouldn't for obvious reasons, but it does make you wish there was some sort of committee led checks and balances system for obvious terrible trades. The only solace is that Nico will never sniff another GM job after his tenure with Dallas is over. It's just too bad it was our organization he nuked from orbit.

[Moviemavguy]

caleb martin has made two three pointers total since being traded to dallas. quentin grimes has made 79 three pointers since being traded to philadelphia.

— Josh Bowe (@Boweman55) April 10, 2025

[SleepingHero]

I will say, if I was a PR manager and I was hired by the Mavs to fix this mess, the first thing I’d do is fire Nico (obviously) but they’d have to make him a pariah. They have to audibly humiliate him as much as they can and separate the brand, the Mavericks, from Nico. Throw him under the bus with every single hit piece possible. Create the narrative that Nico created a dictatorial regime and seized control after Cuban sold and went rogue.


Then have Dumont either step down and be replaced by Miriam Adelsons’ son OR have him make a public address taking this head on. He needs to publicly admit he made a mistake and an oversight. He’d need to say that he spent the last 2 months learning a lot about the city of Dallas, their values, and basketball as a whole and while he cannot undo this mistake, he will make sure it would never happen again. His speech has to come off as a sincere apology with clear cut expectations.

Finally they’d have to hire an established GM with a stellar track history historically. A brand name. (Bob Myers comes to mind). That’d be my game plan to win back the fans and city. Not sure it’d work. But if they really want to get ahead of this, and quell the uproar, that’d be my game plan.

[FireNicoHarrison]

Any assertion that the NBA/Silver could (and might) stop a trade for non-CBA reasons is pure nonsense.

The league operates within the limits of negotiated and bargained-for, very well-defined, and fully-enforceable legal agreements, and the NBA itself (ie, Silver the Commissioner) does not have the power some think it does. The CBA with the players, the Covenants and ByLaws with the individual owners, etc, define the NBA's power, and those would be violated (and make the league subject to MASSIVE lawsuits) if they rejected a trade for any reason other than it failed to conform with the written, negotiated trade rules.

The Chris Paul trade is often cited as a precedent of the league voiding a trade for arbitrary reasons, but it was not. The NBA did not step in and reject that deal (even though many mistakenly believed that was what happened). Instead, it was the ownership of NO who decided they did not want to do it.

The Lakers won this trade because they were smart and eager to take advantage of the stupidness of Nico, and because Nico is a buffoon as a GM, a naive non-expert thinking he's smarter and wiser than he actually is. He has no clue how to evaluate player value and negotiate to win a deal. LA saw a sucker and suckered him. And because we have a foolish Mavs ownership group who stupidly gave the control of the Mavs to such an idiot who was so stupid as to get suckered like that.

I'm not on this boat, i think it's too easy to think that Harrison is buffoon and Dumont a stupid.

This trade moves billion of dollars, they are business men before basketball GM and owner.
I can't believe that they didn't think about it, no way.

[hakeemfaan]

Any assertion that the NBA/Silver could (and might) stop a trade for non-CBA reasons is pure nonsense.

The league operates within the limits of negotiated and bargained-for, very well-defined, and fully-enforceable legal agreements, and the NBA itself (ie, Silver the Commissioner) does not have the power some think it does. The CBA with the players, the Covenants and ByLaws with the individual owners, etc, define the NBA's power, and those would be violated (and make the league subject to MASSIVE lawsuits) if they rejected a trade for any reason other than it failed to conform with the written, negotiated trade rules.

The Chris Paul trade is often cited as a precedent of the league voiding a trade for arbitrary reasons, but it was not. The NBA did not step in and reject that deal (even though many mistakenly believed that was what happened). Instead, it was the ownership of NO who decided they did not want to do it.

The Lakers won this trade because they were smart and eager to take advantage of the stupidness of Nico, and because Nico is a buffoon as a GM, a naive non-expert thinking he's smarter and wiser than he actually is. He has no clue how to evaluate player value and negotiate to win a deal. LA saw a sucker and suckered him. And because we have a foolish Mavs ownership group who stupidly gave the control of the Mavs to such an idiot who was so stupid as to get suckered like that.

It is your opinion vs my opinion. A league will do what’s best for its interests. I didn’t say there was an official rule in place. There was no official rule in place to force out Sterling either. They bundled it under a some vague overarching rule and later settled with him out of court. I also know exactly what happened in the CP3 deal and how the circumstances were different. I noted that in my post.

[hakeemfaan]

I will say, if I was a PR manager and I was hired by the Mavs to fix this mess, the first thing I’d do is fire Nico (obviously) but they’d have to make him a pariah. They have to audibly humiliate him as much as they can and separate the brand, the Mavericks, from Nico. Throw him under the bus with every single hit piece possible. Create the narrative that Nico created a dictatorial regime and seized control after Cuban sold and went rogue.


Then have Dumont either step down and be replaced by Miriam Adelsons’ son OR have him make a public address taking this head on. He needs to publicly admit he made a mistake and an oversight. He’d need to say that he spent the last 2 months learning a lot about the city of Dallas, their values, and basketball as a whole and while he cannot undo this mistake, he will make sure it would never happen again. His speech has to come off as a sincere apology with clear cut expectations.

Finally they’d have to hire an established GM with a stellar track history historically. A brand name. (Bob Myers comes to mind). That’d be my game plan to win back the fans and city. Not sure it’d work. But if they really want to get ahead of this, and quell the uproar, that’d be my game plan.

If the product is good fans will come back eventually. If you want them to come back right away then just firing Nico and a public apology from Dumont to Luka and the fans will bring a lot of fans back. Unlike some who have defected most of the fan base has no other basketball team to root for. We also genuinely like the current players.  We are just looking for a way back to root for our team and that bar is not very high. .

[Chicagojk]

LOL, Why would anyone go to ESPN to get their basketball takes any longer

https://x.com/ESPNNBA/status/1910418193346154677