Nico Harrison is finally out of Dallas. Ever since the infamous Luka Doncic trade, Nico Harrison's job with the Dallas Mavericks has been hanging in the balance. The trade, along with Harrison's attitude throughout the entire saga, frustrated a lot of fans. Now, after the Mavericks started the 2025-26 season with a 3-8 record, Harrison was fired.
Harrison's reputation as a general manager took a large hit after the Doncic trade. His talent evaluation, in particular, was questioned by the Mavericks. Harrison remained adamant that the trade was in Dallas' favor, despite the obvious flaws in the deal. As it turns out, this misvaluation of a trade was not a one-off.
“Some trades were surprisingly pricy for the returns; others that likely would’ve been mistakes, like how Harrison attempted to deal two first-rounders for Kyle Kuzma, went unpunished despite Harrison’s best efforts,” Tim Cato reports. “One team source recalls a document where Harrison placed Jrue Holiday within the same trade target tier as Nikola Jokić.”
The report goes on to mention that Harrison was oddly hard to reach until assistant general manager Matt Riccardi took some of that responsibility. Additionally, despite being part of the talent evaluation team at Nike (his former job), there were questions about the Mavericks ex-GM's ability to build a cohesive team.
To give credit where credit's due, Harrison made a few good moves during his tenure. The trade for PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford gave the Mavericks life in the 2023-24 season, helping propel them to the NBA Finals. However, it's also worth pointing out that since then, it's been revealed that Kuzma was also one of his main targets.
Trading Doncic at the 2024-25 trade deadline to the Los Angeles Lakers was seen as a grave mistake by most people. For one, Dallas basically just traded a top-five player in the league. That's almost always going to be seen as a mistake. The Mavericks also got an aging and oft-injured Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and one first-round pick for their superstar, an underwhelming haul for a player of Doncic's caliber.
Harrison has since rationalized the trade in many different ways, including attacking Doncic's conditioning and his defense. Since then, though, the Mavericks have struggled mightily. The Mavs front office decided to stop prolonging the inevitable and fired the man behind perhaps the worst trade in NBA history.
