Winning the lottery is supposed to fix all of your problems, but there are some debts that are too great for the big ticket to cover.
The Mavericks won the NBA lottery, but it has not come close to paying off the emotional tab of what is becoming one of the worst trades in the history of pro sports by a franchise that refuses to read the room. Nico Harrison’s disdain for beloved superstar Luka Dončić is going to end what was once a promising career as a basketball general manager.
The surest sign that the GM of the Dallas Mavericks is in trouble appeared when the team hired another director of public relations.
The GM ran off the one he inherited, then the one he hired was scrapped, and on Monday the Mavs formally announced a move that has been a bad secret for the last few weeks when former long-time local sportscaster, and FC Dallas vice president, Gina Miller was hired to help address a mess.
This is months after it hired an independent PR specialist to help with the Mavericks’ image.
Gina is a great hire, and she can’t save the GM. Neither can the team president, Rick Welts, who is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
According to current, and former, team staffers, morale with the Mavericks organization is as bad today as it was the day after the GM made one of the worst trades in the history of sports. “Fire Nico” has not faded, and despite his highly visible job, he’s been mostly invisible since the start of the season.
The Mavericks will soon ask the city of Dallas, and its taxpayers, for free money in an effort to make owner Patrick Dumont’s vision of a new resort/arena in downtown Dallas a reality. There is no way the Mavs can ask Dallas city taxpayers for a penny if Harrison is still the GM.
In the summer, Welts told the Star-Telegram that the team expects to make its new arena proposal to Dallas city leaders, and “(at) the end of the first quarter of ‘26, we can say, ‘Here’s where we want it to be,’” he said.
That would put Harrison’s job timeline in that window. Dumont attended the Mavs game on Monday night against the Milwaukee Bucks. It’s the first game he’s attended in person this season.
Why the Mavericks will be inclined to dump Nico Harrison
Dallas mayor Eric Johnson, and the Dallas city council members, are not going to publicly support a measure asking for free money by a franchise that employs the most disliked member of DFW’s sports community.
The damage done by Dumont allowing Harrison to trade Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in February is a level of self-infliction that few sports franchises in the modern era have ever executed.
The acquisition of Anthony Davis has done 0 because the 32-year-old man can’t stay healthy. He missed the Mavs game on Monday with a calf strain. It’s the sixth game this season he’s missed.
The drafting of Cooper Flagg with the first overall pick in the ‘25 NBA Draft has done nothing. He is the youngest player in the NBA, and his development requires time that his GM does not have.
The Mavs are one of the worst teams in the NBA, with a roster that fans not only don’t know, but don’t care to know. They just want their team to lose, so the owner will be motivated to dump the GM they hate.
Whatever good that Harrison can claim he did in building a roster that reached the Western Conference in 2022, and NBA Finals in ‘24, has been destroyed. He did so with the support of a man who doesn’t live here, and while he has extensive experience in the business of entertainment, did not have a clue what it means to be in the business of professional sports entertainment.
Dallas Mavericks at bottom of NBA
While Patrick Dumont is only the son-in-law of the late Sheldon Adelson, he appears to have learned a few things from one of the most ruthless businessman the city of Las Vegas ever housed.
At a time when the Mavericks need as much good will, or PR, as possible, filing a lawsuit against the Dallas Stars is petty, small and mean. The teams have shared the American Airlines Center since it opened in the summer of 2001, and there have been the occasional issues.
In the last few years, when it became apparent that both franchises wanted to play in new buildings, the Stars stopped spending money on the AAC. The Mavericks, however, put some money into the place. The Mavs want the Stars to split the costs of an expense they never wanted.
To file a lawsuit right now makes the owner look tone-deaf, and blind.
The Mavs are in desperate need of some good PR, and, at this point, their only move isn’t another PR person but to offer up a GM that the people cannot stand.