In the wake the firing of now former Dallas Mavericks’ general manager Nico Harrison, Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi have been tapped to run the team’s basketball operations on an interim basis. ESPN’s Shams Charania and Tim MacMahon were the first to report the interim replacements late Tuesday morning on X, formerly Twitter, before the team announced the move later in the morning.
Harrison stayed in his seat for what became nine excruciating months after being fleeced in a trade for one of the greatest basketball talents on planet earth in Luka Dončić for nickels on the dollar to Rob Pelinka and the Los Angeles Lakers. Though it may have felt like a long time to Mavs fans, nine months is actually a relatively short span of time, given the long-term view a general manager has to take when building a team for the future.
Ah, yes, there it is again. That word — “vision.”
That’s what the Mavericks will need when they make a full-time hire for the most important position in regard roster construction and planning for the future — someone with a clear vision of how to bring winning basketball back to Dallas after one of the most catastrophic moves a professional sports franchise has ever made. Is that what they have in Finley and Riccardi? Let’s take a look at the pair and their journey to the front of the front office, because you never know — the next general manager of the Mavericks could very well be one of these two men.
Finley was first hired to a position in the Mavericks’ front office in 2017, before being elevated to assistant general manager and vice president of player personnel as Harrison’s right hand in 2021. He played for the Mavericks for nine seasons, during which he averaged 19.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 3.8 assists. He was named an All-Star twice while with Dallas, during the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons. He still ranks fourth all-time in franchise history in minutes played (24,878) and fifth all-time in points scored (12,389), according to Basketball Reference.
Finley has been a part of two of the Mavericks’ worst years in 1996-97 and 19997-98 before he and Dirk Nowitzki helped turn the team into a perennial playoff contender around the turn of the millennium. He knows how a winner is built and he knows what a losing team looks like as well. He was a key part of the 2002-03 team that won 60 games and lost in the Western Conference Finals to the rival San Antonio Spurs in six games. He scored just over 19 points and grabbed six rebounds a game that year. He is an integral part of the lore and has gained extensive knowledge about the inner workings of the team’s front office over the last nine years.
Matt Riccardi, formerly the other assistant general manager, joined the Mavericks’ front office in 2022 after spending 12-plus years in the Brooklyn Nets’ front office. He climbed the ranks there from a senior manager in the basketball operations department (a scout) to an assistant GM of the then-NBADL team the Long Island Nets, then to a role as the Nets’ director of scouting operations. He was hired by the Mavericks before the 2022-23 season as a senior director of pro personnel and was promoted to assistant GM under Harrison a year later. He’s a climber — a front office and numbers junkie.
CHICAGO, IL - MAY 12: Assistant General Manager Matt Riccardi of the Dallas Mavericks smiles during 2025 NBA Draft Lottery on May 12, 2025 in at Chicago, Illinois at McCormick Convention Center. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2025 NBAE (Photo by Brian Sevald/NBAE via Getty Images)
CHICAGO, IL - MAY 12: Assistant General Manager Matt Riccardi of the Dallas Mavericks smiles during 2025 NBA Draft Lottery on May 12, 2025 in at Chicago, Illinois at McCormick Convention Center. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2025 NBAE (Photo by Brian Sevald/NBAE via Getty Images)
NBAE via Getty Images
Riccardi just sounds like a general manager when you hear him speak. He knows what to say and what not to say. He’s not a great quote, in that he knows what to give away and what not to, but he exudes a sort of sound, buttoned-up analysis on the occasions he’s been interviewed.
The potential move to elevate either one of these two front-office figures to the big chair in the coming weeks may not be as splashy as some would hope, and both spent time in Harrison’s inner circle, so it may behoove team ownership to move in a completely different direction, but make no mistake, Riccardi and Finley are the right choices to help get the Mavericks moving in another direction.
What will be interesting to see is whether they are, one or both, still in the GM seat come trade-deadline time, or whether an outside hire is made before then, as calls come from every corner of the fandom to put Anthony Davis, Daniel Gafford and/or Klay Thompson on the block.
Whoever is ultimately tapped for the Mavericks’ GM job needs to act swiftly to put to rest the absurd notion that Harrison’s hair-brained two-timeline disaster class was actually chess while the rest of the world played checkers. Will that be one of these two? Now we wait, as a slight modicum of hope seeps back into our basketball lives.