Framing is so important and Nico Harrison botched it from the start. What if he said this instead?
On February 1st, the basketball world, and my Dallas Mavericks fandom, was shaken pretty aggressively by the surprising, unthinkable trade of young superstar and Dirk heir, Luka Doncic.
Every piece of communication made by the team, or Nico Harrison himself since has made things worse, including the press conference immediately after.
As a way of wrapping my brain around the loss of my favorite teams’ favorite player, I tried to go back in time and rewriting the speech given by Nick Harrison, to see if there was a way to sell this transaction to a fanbase that has felt belittled, denigrated and insulted nearly every day since the trade happened.
I’m not saying I agree with the trade, the thinking behind it, or almost any move the Dallas Mavericks as an organization have made since. I’m merely trying to see if, communicated differently and giving the benefit of the doubt, there was ever a path forward. If I were Nico Harrison and I had to sell this to the fanbase, here’s what I would’ve said:
Hi everyone, thank you for coming.
Since I got here, I’ve had one mission: To build the Dallas Mavericks into a championship team.
Every single move I’ve made has been to try and achieve that goal, including this one.
Luka Doncic is a tremendous player, who should have one if not two MVP trophies. He is an outstanding teammate, man, father and friend. His future is so bright. Over the last three seasons, led by Luka, we have come so close to achieving our goal: to bring a championship to Dallas.
Going into this season, we felt like we had one of, if not the, best roster in the NBA, top to bottom. As the season unfolded, we felt like our roster as constructed was not one that could win an NBA title. But we developed a plan to get there.
And unfortunately, it meant parting ways with our young superstar, in one of the hardest decisions I’d ever have to make. We knew what was ultimately missing on our roster was a 7’ in the mold of a Dirk offensively, with a bit more athleticism and speed, who would anchor our defense, like Tyson Chandler did back with Dirk in 2011. And that player is Anthony Davis. There is not a better two way player in the league, and Jason Kidd was beyond excited about the possibilities of pairing him with Kyrie and Klay, with PJ on the wing and then Gafford or Lively at the five. It will allow us to play with pace, size and energy on both ends of the floor that we feel like we need to achieve to be a championship squad. Jason will be able to tell you more about this as him and his staff continue put together a plan.
Because we knew exactly who we wanted to add to our roster, we went directly to the Lakers to make this deal. We knew this news would be highly sensitive and didn’t want the thought of stir to create bigger waves than this inevitably will. But we’re ready to take those questions on.
There are some definite downsides to this. This plan all depends on Anthony Davis’s health, but we believe our world class staff of doctors will do everything they can to keep AD game ready. But we believe this is a risk worth taking. If it works out like we plan, we’ll bring the Larry O’Brien trophy back to Dallas. And we believe this keeps us in contention for the next three years as the NBA continues to get longer, bigger and faster. We can’t go into details now, but believe we have a plan after that to both extend that window and will also have the salary flexibility to address our needs as they arise.
While we are sad to part ways with Luka, we are so excited to welcome Anthony Davis into our family and hope you’ll treat him and his the same way you would Luka. He is a truly special player that we feel lucky to be able to have.
Luka might not wear 77 for us anymore, but he will always be a Maverick. Luka Magic is real, and we’re so excited to see what he does next, and wish him nothing but the best. We’re going to treat April 8th, when Los Angeles visits the AAC, as Luka Appreciation Day, and more details will come on that.
Look. I know this is a huge deal. There will be anger, confusion, frustration, and I just want every MFFL that we, I, hear you and empathize. There will be people who don’t get this move at all, who can’t see what we do. We’d say to them: know every decision we’ve made we believe gets us closer to achieving the goal entrusted us: to bring a championship to Dallas. We feel like we’re an Anthony Davis and Max Christie away. We hope we’re right.
I will make myself available in the coming days for questions and comments, but want to give the community of Dallas a few days to process what we’ve been processing the last few weeks. Please feel the space from the organization to feel your feelings. And that’s okay. I know how much Dirk meant to this city, and handing off to Luka, there will be some feelings of extreme loss and changing expectations. We understand and want everyone to know that along with his skillset, his connection to you and the city of Dallas was considered greatly, and make the decision to part ways that much difficult. But above all else, we’re tasked to bring a championship to Dallas. We think this is the way. I’d love to earn your trust. We hope you’ll come along for the ride with us.
It’s going to be different. But it’s going to be special.
And we’re so close.
Thank you.
Jordan (Jody) Dodson is a writer based in NYC. Originally from Dallas, he’s been a fan of the Mavericks since the 1998 season