The Dallas Mavericks are in a tailspin just four weeks into their 2025-26 season.
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After tumbling to a 3-8 record early on the year thanks to a last-second 116-114 loss against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday night, Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont has finally done the inevitable, firing team president Nico Harrison after his horrific trade of five-time All-NBA superstar guard Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers last February.
The team is overloaded with frontcourt players and concerningly thin at guard, stuck in the mud offensively with an archaic shot profile.
For now, Dallas will supplant Harrison with current Mavericks executives Michael Finley, a former Dallas player, and Matt Riccardi as the clubs interim top decision makers, sources tell ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Shams Charania.
MacMahon has now shared a letter Dumont issued “to all Mavs fans” when the Harrison news was announced.
“As fans of this franchise, you have every right to demand a commitment to success from us,” Dumont wrote. “No one associated with the Mavericks organization is happy with the start of what we all believed would be a promising season… I understand the profound impact these difficult last several months have had. Please know that I’m fully committed to the success of the Mavericks.”
Doncic’s Lakers debut was a bit delayed by a calf injury, but he quickly emerged as the best player on a team also featuring (a pretty old) LeBron James, en route to a 50-win season and the Western Conference’s No. 3 seed. Granted, LA fell in a five-game first-round defeat to the Minnesota Timberwolves - but then again, the Mavericks missed the playoffs entirely after losing in the play-in tournament sans nine-time All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving.
New Dallas big man Anthony Davis, the prized trade acquisition of Dallas’ controversial Doncic deal, has played just 14 cumulative games for the team since the February trade, amid his own pesky injury woes.
The 2025-26 vintage of the Lakers, by the way, is off to an inverse 8-3 start. Doncic and rising co-star Austin Reaves are clicking, forward Rui Hachimura is playing the best basketball of his career, and new signings Deandre Ayton, Jake LaRavia and Marcus Smart are meshing surprisingly well. 21-time All-Star forward James, who finished as an All-NBA Second Teamer just last season, has yet to play a single second as the 40-year-old recuperates from a sciatica injury.
“…I think the fans finally start to see the vision” of his roster, Harrison bragged to the press (per Joey Mistretta of ClutchPoints) while introducing rookie phenom-to-be Cooper Flagg this past June, as if he had envisioned seeing his best remaining offensive player Irving tear his ACL in March and thus crater Dallas’ season en route to the team lucking into Flagg with the No. 1 pick.
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