Nico Harrison thinks he’s ‘done a really good job here,’ and other gems from his end-of-year presser

The Dallas Mavericks general manager faced the media for his 2024-25 exit press conference, one week after his failed closed-door roundtable with select media members.

Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison believes at least two things that are sure to rile the team’s fan base all over again, according to his end-of-season press conference Monday.

Thing one:

“I’ve done a really good job here,” Harrison said in response to a pointed question on why he deserves to retain his position with the team at this point, as calls for his job ring out from every corner of fandom after the shocking trade of Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis and spare change in February.

“I think I’ve done a really good job here,” Harrison said with fuller context. “And I don’t think I should be judged by the injuries this year. You have to judge from totality from beginning to end. I think I have a really good relationship with Patrick [Dumont]. … You’ll see next year when our team comes back, we’re going to be competing for a championship.”

So, he believes that the full totality of his resume bullet points during his four seasons as Mavs GM speaks for itself, and he believes at this point, that he has the support of his superiors, specifically naming team Governor Dumont as someone he believes to be in his corner. He says this as another report landed Monday morning that disputes that characterization of the relationship between the two.

This is from a DLLS piece written by Tim Cato:

“Team sources consistently express belief that Dumont no longer sees Harrison as a figure with irreproachable basketball expertise. Most notably, team and league sources say, Dumont has had frustration with Harrison not warning him — or, perhaps even more damningly, being unaware — of the fandom’s outrage following the trade. Those same sources say it had some influence over Dumont’s decision to make Harrison appear for last week’s closed media event, which Harrison did not want to participate in.”

Harrison admitted again Monday that he only realized how much Dončić meant to Mavericks fans and how long the outrage over moving him would persist after he pulled the trigger on the trade. He first made that admission in last week’s awkward behind-closed-doors media roundtable. The embattled GM also contested Cato’s report without calling it out directly by saying that the two-plus months after the trade actually strengthened his working relationship with Dumont.

“It actually strengthened [the relationship between Harrison and Dumont] because we talk a lot more and we’re kind of linked together to this,” Harrison said. “It’s made us have to have a lot more conversations. I believe we have a really good working relationship. He came out publicly and supported me, and I don’t take that lightly. I have to come out and deliver on that.”

Thing two:

Nico’s second core belief, which he kept going back to, almost as much as he trotted out the tired “defense wins championships” deflection at Monday’s press conference, is that he believes that his team, as constructed and when healthy, has the assets to compete for an NBA title as soon as next year.

“We return one of the best front lines in the NBA, and we’re going to have one of the deepest and most versatile benches in the league,” Nico said early on. When asked whether he believed Dončić to be a championship-caliber player, he dodged that bullet, too, saying, “That’s kind of an unfair question. Luka is no longer on this team. What I am excited about is that I believe we have a championship-caliber team, and we’ll show that next year.”

In his terse prepared statement from the top of the presser, he expanded on that:

“Our plan was to put Kyrie on the floor with [Davis, Klay Thompson, PJ Washington and Dereck Lively II] so that people could see the vision. Unfortunately, that never came.”

And that vision, even more unfortunately for Harrison & Co., won’t be realized until at least January 2026, after Irving underwent successful knee surgery for an ACL tear in March. That January timeline would put Irving’s recovery window at 9-10 months for an injury most medical professionals frame in a wider 6-to-12-month window. So, a March return for Irving is just as likely as the January timeline that team sources initially fed to ESPN insider Shams Charania.

ESPN’s Tim MacMahon reported on Monday as part of a wide-ranging exclusive on dysfunction within the Mavericks organization, that the training and performance staff, now headed by Johann Bilsborough, which Harrison brought in to replace the staff headed by Casey Smith, are thought by some to be “optimistic” on return timetables following injuries.

Davis’ return to action on Feb. 8 in his first game with the Mavericks, which resulted in a non-contact adductor strain, and the recent revelation of Dereck Lively’s stress fracture in his ankle were cited as two possible points in favor of that argument.

So, for however long this supposedly “championship-caliber team” has to play without its best player in his Age 34 next year, how does Harrison plan on replacing Irving’s production in the lineup?

“One, I feel good that you can’t replace Kyrie through free agency. He’s too good as a player,” he said. “We have a really deep and versatile bench, and some of those guys will have to fill the void by committee, and then we’ll use free agency and we’ll use the draft.”

Further obfuscation on his relationship with Luka

MacMahon’s report Monday morning indicates that the relationship between Dončić’s camp and the Harrison-led front office deteriorated over the course of the 2023-24 season, a year before Dončić led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals. It details the systematic removal of the pro-Luka parts of the front office, especially the dismantling of the training staff that Smith had been a part of since 2004.

However, in Monday’s press conference, Harrison said the decision to move on from Dončić did not build over a period of six, nine or 12 months, as MacMahon reported.

“It wasn’t so much that there was a straw that broke the camel’s back,” Harrison said. “When you live with someone for three years, you get to know their strengths and weaknesses. It was more about a change in philosophy in terms of, ‘how can we get a top defensive team that will help us win a championship?’

When asked directly whether his relationship with Dončić or members of Dončić’s camp led to the trade, he side-stepped giving any sort of substantive answer.

“I worked at Nike for 20 years, and there are superstars that have teams around them, and you have to cater to them, and they’ve earned that. I don’t worry about getting along with people. I can work with anybody.”

So, then, Nico, what prevented you from getting more in return for a legendary player in his ascendency who was only 25 at the time of the trade? He tried to spin his answer, implying in his answer that asking for more back in the trade equates with a lack of respect for Davis’ track record at Age 32.

“The biggest thing is if you don’t value AD as an All-NBA player and an All-Defensive player, then you’re not going to like him,” Harrison said. “If you don’t like him, there’s nothing else that we’re going to get that’s going to make you excited about the trade, and we value him.

Yea, Nico, for the millionth time, no one said they didn’t like Davis. There goes your team GM trying to drive yet another wedge between the fanbase in a top-five media market and players he’s put in the toughest positions of their respective careers.

Odds and ends

Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images

Harrison also said on Monday that Davis, who appeared to have continued discomfort in the hip/groin area during the Mavericks’ play-in games against the Sacramento Kings and Memphis Grizzlies, would not require surgery this offseason. He said he didn’t believe Lively would on his ankle/foot, either.

When asked about the possibility of Irving opting into his player option for 2025-26, Harrison said that it is “too early to speculate what Kyrie is going to do, but he’s going to be a Maverick next year.”

If he opts out, the Mavericks may make him an even more lucrative offer than the $44 million he would be owed next season if he opts in, and Harrison’s comments above seem to indicate they would offer him either more money or additional years should Irving opt out of the player option.

“Kyrie is a big part of what our future is, and that’s not going to change whether he opts in or opts out,” Harrison said in response to another question. Our core is actually connected for the next two to three seasons. I don’t see a lot of movement around our core. It’s more how you shape around that, and that starts with the draft.”

The NBA Draft will take place on June 25 at 7 p.m. You can watch a replay of Harrison’s exit press conference below: