The Dallas Mavericks STILL need to fire Nico Harrison – now more than ever

Harrison has done more than enough to show himself unworthy to be the long-term steward of the franchise

It took 17 tries, but the Dallas Mavericks finally moved UP in the NBA Draft Lottery. Until this latest attempt, they’ve moved back in seven of their previous 16 drawings. The odds of that happening are roughly 3.95%. In the process, they’ve given up 13 spots in total throughout the years and missed out on the chance to draft players like Chris Weber or Penny Hardaway because of bad draft luck. They even had to trade up to draft Luka Doncic after falling from third to fifth.

Now the Mavericks and their franchise have been brought back from the brink despite the “do not resuscitate” order some fans have assigned themselves. Now, though, against all odds — and it’s scary to even think it, but… we’re so back. That is, right after we deal with this little GM problem.

Ladies and gentlemen of the MavsMoneyball readership, Dallas winning this lottery is objectively hilarious. You couldn’t have scripted it any better. I love joking about league conspiracies and posting rigged memes as much as anyone. Don’t let that fool you into thinking this was planned. Dallas getting the #1 pick is a generational stroke of luck. But it has delivered that pick into the hands of a man who is, more than any other person in basketball, backed into a corner like a desperate animal and who’s sitting on a seat so hot that even looking at it without eye protection can cause permanent blindness.

Let me be clear: Nico Harrison did not make a deal with Adam Silver to get Cooper Flagg. He did not plan for any of this when he traded away Luka Doncic. He expected to be in the playoffs as a legit contender, not praying for the fourth-luckiest bounce in draft lottery history. He is not a man suited to running an NBA team, and even less so a team that will likely not ripen into a contender until after his stated “window of contention” closes. Right now, Nico Harrison is the greatest threat to the franchise’s unlikely resurrection.

He’s a man who has stated he has little interest in what might happen to this team beyond a timeline that aligns with Anthony Davis’ contract. Cooper Flagg isn’t on that timeline. So, who is? Perhaps established names like Paul George or Kevin Durant, or in a best-case scenario, Giannis Antetokounmpo. Harrison appears drawn to ‘true hoopers,’ two-way players, or even ‘broken down 30-year-olds on their last legs’—though Giannis is clearly an exception to that last description, and Dallas would face overwhelming competition to sign the Bucks’ MVP.

To those who would say “get over it! It’s time to move past it and root for this team!” I would love to, but that isn’t possible while a cloud of malevolent incompetence hangs over every decision being made for this team’s future. Firing Nico Harrison is what moving on looks like. Pretending that everything is fine and Harrison is good at his job after having a number one pick fall into his lap can only lead to more harm to the franchise and distractions for players, fans, and team employees trying to get over having their team ransacked.

Even the slim possibility that Harrison could ship out this pick for a package around one of those players should be enough to kick him to the curb and bring in someone who knows how to steady a rocking boat. If Patrick Dumont has any sense at all he’ll make sure Harrison can’t do any more damage to this team than he’s already done, and do the no-brainer move by drafting Cooper Flagg. But if Dumont wanted to solve the problem in the long term, he’d give Harrison a bus ticket to literally anywhere else. Some place Nico can spend the rest of his life, blacklisted and unhirable by the league’s decision makers, telling anybody who would listen that he was right all along! If only AD and Kyrie could stay healthy! Yeah, yeah, keep yelling at those clouds, just get away from this team.