For years, Cowboys GM Jerry Jones was the most disdained man in the Dallas-Fort Worth sports complex.
Now, that title belongs to Nico Harrison.
From dormant free-agent windows to bad business decisions, Jones was public enemy number one for Dallas fans. Thankfully for Jones and his family, he has new competition. Fierce, unrelenting competition that has come about for all the wrong reasons.
Tim MacMahon made an ode to the Battles of Lexington and Concord with his article heard ’round the world, pouring gasoline on the fire that is the Mavericks front office. Many damning things came out in the article about GM Nico Harrison and his handling of the Mavericks over the least year and a half.
Naturally, people have thoughts. Burning thoughts.
Self-Inflicted Infestation
When someone has an infestation of bugs they can’t control, they call exterminators to do the job.
The Mavericks had an infestation of injuries this year. A big one, too— one that could only compare to the likes of the COVID San Francisco 49ers. However, prior to August 2023, Dallas had some of the best exterminators for that type of job.
Casey Smith, director of health and performance, had athletic performance director Jeremy Holsopple and manual therapist Casey Spangler by his side to make up one of the best health staffs in the NBA.
Then, Nico Harrison showed up and decided he was going to raise hell.
That’s right, Nico Harrison fired Smith — a well-respected man in his field and someone who was friends with the face of the franchise at the time, Luka Dončić — while he was mourning a loss in the family. Not just any loss either. It was the loss of his mother, of all things. The reasoning is even worse — Smith’s firing was boiled down to him being “too negative.”
Ironic, considering the current day circumstances.
Then, just under a year later, both Spangler and Holsopple were released. Why? Well, Harrison saw them as “enablers” to megastar Luka Doncic, whom he was growing more and more at odds with. He would end up getting rid of him, too, of course.
So what happens when a GM dismantles one of the best medical staffs in the league? The team ends up in the situation the Dallas Mavericks found themselves in this year.
Horse With a Broken Leg
Dallas’ main “highlights” of the 2024-25 campaign include rushing Anthony Davis back from injury and almost forcing Dereck Lively II to play with a stress fracture, according to MacMahon. Yes, Dallas management nearly made Lively, a 21-year-old in his second year, risk his career for no reason.
Furthermore, Dončić, when he was still on the team, suffered a calf injury on Christmas Day. That’s an injury that usually takes two months to heal, but the new medical staff Harrison brought in — more specifically, Johann Bilsborough — believed Dončić could return after two weeks.
Credit to Bilsborough, though, because he was the guy who spotted Lively’s stress fracture. The other Harrison hire, Keith Belton, wanted Lively to play two nights later.
Lively’s status wasn’t the only thing they disagreed on. MacMahon stated firmly that the two were at odds from the minute they were tabbed to work with one another.
Essentially, the Mavericks have a crapshoot in charge of the health of their players, who came to be because of the great Nico Harrison.
Harrison’s Hole Gets Deeper
The following are all quotes related to Harrison from MacMahon’s article:
“Cheerleader energy.”
“He’s going to show that I’m in charge and nobody else can question that.”
“Harrison griped that Dončić was holding the team hostage.”
Are these the things a fan should be hearing publicly about their GM? The man who is in charge of basketball operations wants people to just sit back and listen to his word, good or bad? Does he feel a threat from the people on the medical staff?
It’s ludicrous. Nico Harrison keeps digging a bigger hole for himself, one that would make Stanley Yelnats blush. He keeps trying to hide behind his decision to trade the best thing to happen to Dallas basketball in over 10 years with the same quips, but everyone sees through it.
“Defense wins championships,” Harrison has often said.
Maybe. But firing people in mourning because of an ego trip, hiring staff that sing your praises no matter the situation, alienating your megastar, trading that megastar, and then making the nastiest notions about him afterwards, do not win championships.
Harrison is not someone who should be in charge of anything, let alone a championship-level basketball organization. It’s a miracle he still has a job at this point. Anything he says just throws more gasoline on the wildfire that he willingly started.
Harrison left the fans, players and coaches for dead in a season full of adversity — just ask HC Jason Kidd:
https://twitter.com/MavsFilmRoom/status/1914310737419198928
It’s baffling.
What Now, Nico?
Honestly, what do the Mavericks do this summer? They’ve got a solid team, but it’s covered in the front office’s rat poison. There are rumors that they could target Kevin Durant in the summer, but what would entice him to go there now? Job security wouldn’t be a given, the core of the team is aging, and it would only hurt KD’s team-switching reputation.
On top of all this, if Nico Harrison doesn’t know the value of someone like Luka Dončić — a decree he made in his end-of-season interview — he surely will undervalue an MVP like Durant:
It’s enough to boil the blood of even the calmest man. The damage done to this organization can and will last decades to come, and none of the players, nor fans, deserve it.
It’s a travesty; it was avoidable, and it’s going to be a long time before the Mavericks recover from it.
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