Dallas Mavericks General Manager Nico Harrison and CEO Rick Welts hosted an impromptu meeting on Tuesday for select media members, prohibiting the use of recording devices.
Team executives hosting a media session is common in the NBA. However, it is uncommon for media members to be forced to attend the meeting behind closed doors while barring the use of any recording device.
Despite claiming during the meeting that Harrison has “no regrets” about the shocking trade of 25-year-old superstar Luka Dončić, this meeting was just the second time Harrison has spoken with the media since the trade went down.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the first time he met with the media was just one day after the trade was announced. He answered only a few questions before leaving Head Coach Jason Kidd alone for the remainder of the session.
Harrison also spends the majority of Mavericks games waiting by the team tunnel, presumably to avoid criticism and the constant “Fire Nico” chants that rain down when he is in attendance.
The Mavericks GM said he has “no regrets” about this trade because he believes it sets the team up for a “three-to-four-year time frame” to win a championship.
“Part of my job is to do the best thing for the Mavericks, not only today, but also in the future, and some of the decisions I’m going to make are going to be unpopular. That’s my job, and I have to stand by it,” he explained, per ESPN.
Harrison missed multiple key aspects of this trade and its impact on the franchise and the fans. Dončić was only 25 years old and coming off the most productive season of his career after leading Dallas to the NBA Finals.
The team was already set up for success for another decade, but Harrison chose to make a trade that increased the team’s reliance on older players while shortening the Mavericks’ window for contention.
To make matters worse, the Mavericks have almost no control over their own first-round picks in the future. The team’s first-round picks in 2027, 2028, 2029, and 2030 are all eligible to be sent to another team in some manner.
So maybe this move will keep the Mavericks in contention for a championship in the next two or three years, but it could also cripple the team for a decade.
Barring another meaningful trade in the upcoming offseason, Dallas’ best chance to compete will be next season. The team will rely on an even older Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving, who is playing his first season after a torn ACL.
Harrison’s attempts in this interview to turn the Mavericks’ fanbase against the organization did not stop there. During the meeting, he also took shots at both the fans and Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki.
“Some of those decisions are going to be unpopular, maybe to Dirk [Nowitzki] and maybe to the fans, but my obligation is to the Dallas Mavericks,” he said, per D Magazine.
Both Harrison and Welts took turns attempting to justify the Mavericks’ trading away one of the most beloved superstars in the NBA, with Harrison consistently pointing out that “defense wins championships.”
Although this concept is often true for NBA Champions, the Mavericks have not been a good defensive team since the trade went through.
Since February 2, Dallas has ranked just 24th in the NBA in team defensive rating, while also surrendering the most points in the paint of any team in the league.
Additionally, the Mavericks rank 22nd in the league during this timeframe in steals per game at just 7.5 and 17th in blocks per game with only 4.6.
Naturally, some of these struggles are due to the injuries suffered by the team’s big men, but those are factors that must be considered when making one of the biggest trades in the NBA’s history.
Following Harrison’s comments, Welts offered his own justification for the trade, comparing the decision to the Golden State Warriors trading Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut in 2012.
“At Golden State, when I got there, we had one marketable player that our fans loved,” said Welts, per CBS Sports.
“His name was Monta Ellis. We traded Monta Ellis to the Milwaukee Bucks for an injured Andrew Bogut, who wasn’t going to play that season. Ten days later, our new owner, Joe Lacob, was booed off the court trying to retire Chris Mullin’s uniform to bring him back into the fold of the Warriors. Booed off the court. The ball came out of Monta Ellis’ hands, was put in this young guard named Stephen Curry. Four championships later, that worked out pretty well.”
The biggest issue with this comparison is that Dončić, in this example, is Curry.
Simply put, Harrison and Welts seem oblivious to the issues of trading away the most beloved player in Dallas sports, and they have failed to take accountability for any of the following moves.
Currently, it seems that neither Harrison nor Welts will be with the franchise long term.