Nico Harrison is still defending the Luka Doncic trade after Mavs’ nightmare season

The Mavs explained Luka Doncic trade again, and they still sound delusional

Nico Harrison has made it clear: he doesn’t regret the Luka Doncic trade even after a nightmare end to the Dallas Mavericks’ season. The Mavs’ top decision-maker met the media on Tuesday for just the second time since the Doncic trade. Harrison barred cameras and recording devices from the press session, but the quotes coming out are still shocking given how poorly the Doncic trade has played out for the Mavericks.

Harrison reiterated that he has no regrets about trading Doncic. He stuck to the script for why he made the move: he believes defense wins championships, and he didn’t think Doncic could be a reliable part of Dallas’ future on the supermax extension he was due for in the summer. In the hours after the Doncic trade happened, Harrison leaked to the media that his philosophy is “defense wins championships.” Guess what line he repeated on Tuesday?

Someone should probably tell Harrison that the Mavs had a better defensive rating with Doncic this season than they did with the player he was traded for, big man Anthony Davis. Davis got hurt in his first game with the Mavs, which isn’t exactly surprising for a player who has been injury prone his entire career, and was already dealing with an abdominal strain when he was traded to the Mavs. Things only got worse from there for Dallas, with multiple starters going down with injuries, including Kyrie Irving’s devastating torn ACL that will linger well into next season. The Mavs have no hope now or in the future thanks to Harrison’s Doncic trade.

Trading Doncic for the package Dallas got back was always an indefensible decision. It’s clear Mavs’ leadership is completely delusional in terms of how they viewed Doncic and how they approached the trade. When pressed on the disastrous outcome of the trade so far, Dallas CEO Rick Welts compared it to another unpopular trade at the time that worked out well: the Warriors dealing Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut in 2012.

There just isn’t any comparison between the two trades. Ellis never made an All-Star team in his career. Doncic already had five First-Team All-NBA nods to his name by age-25, and he had just led the Mavericks to the 2024 NBA Finals. Ellis was traded in part to clear room for an ascendant young guard named Stephen Curry. The Mavs have no one can come close to doing what Luka does.

Want a better comparison for this trade? Try the Babe Ruth deal. That one didn’t work out so well for the Red Sox, even if head coach Jason Kidd thinks it’s cool to hear the comparison.

Another issue tied to the trade was Doncic’s looming supermax extension, a five-year, $346 million contact that Dallas didn’t want to pay him this summer. No player has ever turned down a supermax contract, and Doncic essentially confirmed he was going to sign it in the wake of the trade (he’s no longer eligible for the supermax since being traded to the Lakers). Harrison said he was no guarantee that Doncic would sign the supermax, which feels like a flat out lie. He stuck to his guns even after ESPN’s Tim MacMahon pushed back on him.

There are a lot of conspiracy theories about the Doncic trade, but it feels like Harrison was fully convinced his team would never win a championship with Luka on the roster. Harrison was a close associate of Kobe Bryant during his heyday, and he didn’t see Bryant’s killer mentality in Doncic as he often reported to training camp out of shape.

Harrison is out of his mind on this one, too, but the important thing is that he really believes it. Here’s the line they will put on Harrison’s professional grave once he’s fired.

Harrison’s timing with this media blitz was also bizarre, happening a day after the Dallas Wings drafted Paige Bueckers No. 1 overall and a day before the Mavs play an elimination game in the NBA play-in tournament in the 9/10 matchup. Why couldn’t this wait until after the season is officially over?

NBA fans will be talking about the Doncic trade for decades. Harrison might still be defending it, but it was a bad trade the moment he made it, and it’s worked out even worse in the short term.

If the Mavs want to win back the goodwill of their fans, they should start by firing Harrison. Trading Anthony Davis would be a good next step, especially considering Kyrie Irving is out most or all of next season. Harrison’s legacy is already secure: he’s the guy who made the stupidest trade in modern sports history. Luka is still writing his own legacy, and now that will be with the Lakers. The quicker this ends, the better off everyone will be.