Nico Harrison on the backlash to trading Luka Doncic: “I did know Luka was important to the fan base. I didn’t quite know it to what level.”
It’s kinda your job to understand that.
Or at least it was your job.
The thing is this has nothing to do with how valuable he was to the fans. He was simply valuable as a basketball player and he didn’t even understand that
It was such a bad trade that it’s hard to not look at it from a conspiratorial angle
especially since AD (aka 95% of the entire package) was punted a year later after playing just 29 games with them.
the final tally on the trade including the AD to Wizards trade:
Luka, Maxi, Morris, Exum, Hardy, DLo for the #30 pick in 2026, 2029 LAL 1st, a top 20 protected 2030 GSW 1st that will likely not convey, and Middleton/Bagley/AJ Johnson who have left in free agency this summer. (edit: and Max Christie lol)
It would be a disgusting return if they got that for Kyrie Irving, let alone Luka.
Jesus. That is really a bag of scraps. Getting almost nothing for AD really cements it as the worst trade ever.
Didn’t think the Nets trade would be usurped but Nico said “hold my beer”
Yeah, Nets did trade away the picks that would become Tatum and Brown—the core of their championship run—but in the counterfactual, there is no guarantee they would actually draft those players. The season and subsequent lottery would have played out differently. Further, the Celtics famously traded DOWN to take Tatum when they knew Fultz and Lonzo were going 1-2, respectively. Even if the Nets had secured a high draft pick, they might have just wound up with one of those guys instead.
Also, in the moment, the Nets trade was at least defensible. Certainly, many, if not most, people realized it was an overpay or bad gamble on over-the-hill players. But no one in the moment was defending the Luka trade. This was not a “hindsight is twenty-twenty” situation. It was boneheaded from the start. The only saving grace was getting Flag, but that was pure dumb luck.
Even if you believe the conspiracy (I do) and include Flagg it’s still terrible. Still worse than Jaylen Brown.
I think it’s really just that Nico was obsessed with AD. He’s got some seriously weird comments about him in private that AD talked about on Draymond’s podcast.
Even if, you can’t discount if a player is injury prone or definitively older. It’s just absolutely astounding.
He was horribly incompetent and unaware of things every serious fan understood.
How do people like that become high up in a teams decision making role. Like how could someone become an intern with this lack of knowledge. Just unbelievable.
Even just a casual person who reads a random nba article and watches one or two games a year knows the value of Luka.
Billionaires run everything
The way to become a billionaire is to start out rich and also get lucky on top of that. And then you think you did something cause noone else is a billionaire (because they didnt get to start the race stumbling over the finish line) so you are full of yourself as well as incompetent and you make a bunch of garbage decisions (this is where you hire Nico Harrison and/or listen to his opinions)
Better off hiring a 12 year old that plays a lot of 2k. lol
That’s not really the story for Nico though. Mark Cuban didn’t grow up rich, he just got really lucky with selling high on internet radio during the dotcom bubble.
The reason Nico got hired is because he was popular among NBA players with his time with Nike, which is so bizarre to me that someone without legitimate NBA operations experience somehow fell into a fucking GM job. I have to assume Nico is an all-timer when it comes to interviewing for jobs above his skill level. Part of his claim to fame is botching the Steph Curry pitch back in 2013 for Nike. Seems this guy has just been falling upwards his entire career.
What has he said about AD?
And how would dallas have obtained flagg had kyrie not tore his acl exactly?
Literally the stupidest conspiracy theory of all time in the nba
Also, why would the other owners sign off on having no shot at Flagg just so they could help the freaking Lakers. Other teams were tanking for Flagg with the knowledge they wouldn’t get him? It makes absolutely zero sense.
And it’s not like Silver would do it behind the owners backs….he literally works for the owners. They are his bosses. He’d be risking his career, reputation, and financial wellbeing for no benefit to himself?
These lottery conspiracies never make any sense if you stop and think about the incentives for 2 seconds.
all the franchises are partners….and they have revenue sharing.
new mavs owners just been strong arming dallas/texas into building their new casino/stadium
Yes, but they’d obviously make far more money from getting Flagg themselves then by revenue sharing going up a fraction. Playoff revenue for your own team is worth far, far more than what theyd get from revenue sharing.
Ok?
Yeah, they’re trying to say Danny fucking Ainge would not only be cool with Dallas getting the great white hope in Flagg instead of Utah, but that he’d also facilitate the Luka trade to seal the deal on his team not getting Flagg? A white ball handling forward? Flagg is Danny’s wet fucking dream. Not a chance in hell that meddler would allow that.
I’d love to have a conversation with someone who genuinely believes the conspiracy. The Mavs were on their way to a playoff spot before Kyrie tore his ACL. Was the injury faked to support the conspiracy? Has the whole rehab and recovery process been faked too? The Mavs aren’t even in the lottery if Kyrie stays healthy.
I agree it is hard to not look at it from a conspiracy angle, and this is the rare case where I do not begrudge anyone who entertains conspiracy theories even when I never will personally.
But I do think the most crucial thing to point out is that if the conspiracy was to trade Luka to the Lakers and get Flagg from the NBA in exchange, that misses the fact that the Mavericks after trading Luka were still making a playoff push rather than — not even tanking, just staying barely outside the playoffs — and then when they got to the Play-In as the 10 seed, they literally beat the Kings in the first game. If they wanted to be in the lottery because they knew the NBA was gonna get them Flagg, they would not have tried to win that game vs Sacramento.
They also wouldn’t have been a lottery team if Kyrie didn’t tear his ACL.
C’mon now, you’ve never seen an inconceivable trade met immediately by overwhelming backlash then subsequently winning the draft lottery with sub 2% odds?
He was simply valuable as a basketball player and he didn’t even understand that
Yeah, at the time of the trade, Luka was absolutely viewed as one of the most valuable assets in the league.
Right this wasn’t a ‘how dare you trade away the face of the franchise’, it’s that the return was absolutely pitiful. And it was only so bad because the deal was kept under wraps. If he was dead set on shipping Luka out for some stupid reason, he would have received a ton of offers from around the league. The Nets got FIVE first round picks for Mikal Bridges. You’d have to imagine Doncic would get at least that much on the open market.
Name the last 5 time 1st team all nba player traded. Now how many traded before 26 that fit those. None besides Luka
But the ones that did do that are KD, lebron, Duncan, Luka. Note it doesnt include AD the guy he was traded for. All time terrible trade and the return was horrible that commissioner and shams were asked is this real.
Agree, if we can prove he showed no evidence of being a dumbass prior to the trade
Nico was a Nike exec brought in because Cuban was frustrated he didn’t get meetings with premier free agents. The basketball operations people worked directly with the owner and Nico was more figure head/contract negotiator until he they sold the team and the new people thought he was a real GM.
As soon as he had real power he went about doing the Nike brained thing and trading a fat euro for an AAU legend who was on teh Lakurs.
The question was about fan backlash so he answered about fan backlash. There’s plenty of reasons to hate on Nico we don’t need to be making them up lmao.
he sounds like he only reads about basketball from far away.
The best part of the quote comes after what OP put in the title too. Him saying “we believed that [the team they traded for] is a championship caliber team”. Did he forget that the Mavs were very literally just in the finals already
Tone deaf statement from Nico. He absolutely knew Luka was important, he just thought he had a magical plan to somehow build a team with a better superstar than Luka, which everybody in the league there there was not, save for a handful proved superstars you can count on one hand.
Yeah, but identifying your team’s best player in a generation os like…a really hard job.
The level of ignorance on this guy is amazing.
Literally nothing he says can convince me he didn’t have something personal against Luka that made him say “fuck the fans”
Even then… get better value than AD and a lakers FRP. If he got an absolute haul that he should have this wouldn’t be as big of an issue.
It’s just more evidence of just how much he personally underated/straight up hated Luka lol
He didn’t even consider “I might be selling him cheap”, dude was too busy having a giant boner thinking about trading him and “proving himself right” with AD afterwards
Even if he didn’t personally value Luka much, as a basketball professional he should have known that others do.
Also, no matter your personal feelings, it’s pure malpractice to not even seek offers from more than one team. Always get multiple offers. You don’t even need to be an NBA executive to understand this, it’s Adulting 101.
You don’t understand, it was an emergency. Luka was getting fatter by the minute. Had not Nico accepted the offer, Doncic would have crossed the line where there’s no going back to fit. People just can’t handle the truth.
I think he knew on some level that he was shitting on the franchise and the fans which is why he didn’t tell anyone he was going to do it and only talked to his “buddy.”
Nico loves the Lakers. He didn’t want them to give up too much.
If he has a better haul, he would have won this trade cause I don’t see Luka leading Lakers to any titles.
Too bad he’ll always get the memes because he’s so stupd to get psychoed by Pelinka to not entertain the market. Lmao.
For real, dude is in the top 10 of active players, you could easily get a haul like the Bucks got for Giannis and set your franchise up for future success, and yet nobody else in the league besides Pelinka knew he was even available for trade? I understand wanting to keep a low profile, but it’s still criminal not shopping him around the league.
Isn’t the most likely explanation some sort of corruption/dodginess?
And all this looking stupid stuff is to try to sell the lie.
I mean maybe I’m talking nonsense. But a grudge doesn’t cut it in my mind. Nobody who pays any attention at all to basketball could think the best toy can get for perennial MVP candidate Luka Doncic is an aging and increasingly.injury-prone player that was also at his peak worse than Luka
The simplest and actual most likely explanation is that Nico is dumb as rocks.
People can downvote me to hell. I will die believing NBA guaranteed the 1st overall pick to Nico if he traded Luka to the Lakers
He is xenophobic Clearlly
Nico’s wife was absolutely obsessed w Luka. That likely had something to do with the trade too.
I mean… that’s what it was lol. There’s no secret reason
He pretty clearly did, and the new ownership knew nothing about basketball and trusted him to make moves, which is why he was able to abuse that trust and do that.
Worst GM in sports history. He’s so dumb and incompetent that he should get a round of applause whenever he remembers to ask somebody to tie his shoes.
His ignorance only matched by his arrogance.
Ignorance is just an excuse. Profit or pride was the actual reason, and seeing how hard he is fighting this, I’m leaning towards profit.
Ignorance of what exactly? Lemme see:
ignorant of the history of basketball. These types of homegrown aka drafted generational players is rare.
ignorant of the fan base. Mavs fully backed Luka from the start. You don’t trade fan favorites at the start of their prime.
ignorant of his GM responsibilities. For an asset like that, you expect riches in return, not peanuts in street clothes.
ignorant of the logic of team construction. You don’t trade away a cornerstone like that. That’s the stone you build around.
The clip really made it seem like the last one was the biggest part. He named those players like they were more than the sum of their parts. Having a player like Luka dramatically, emphatically, raises your ceiling. Not understanding that is a critical failure.
Nico may have made some nice moves before the disastrous trade. But at the moment of trading him, he may have been the worst at his job in the history of sports.
It’s not ignorance. It’s years of pr training after being terrible at your job and echoing what his owners are saying.
Dirk passed the torched to Luka, He brought them to the Finals, He loved Dallas and could’ve been a lifer.
Fuck Nico Harrison.
Pretty sad that we will never know if Luka ever gets his second shot at a finals (as a Mav) like Dirk did. I always thought Luka would surpass Dirk as the best Mav of all time. Now Dirk is firmly in that spot for sure.
It’s up to Flagg to surpass him at this point.
I don’t think it’s possible as a former MFFL. Dallas loves Cooper but he’s like the rebound from the first love ex you dated for 5 years.
I hope I’m wrong.
You just have to give it more time. Winning will make everything feel better.
Bro Cooper’s like 13. Let him grow a little. The fans will love him.
Unless…2028?
He was on pace to be the best player in their franchise history.
This is a generational front office meltdown that we will remember forever.
And Nico Harrison’s name will always be tarnished because of it. Deservedly so!
Not only on pace but fully embraced and supported by the guy he would have passed. Just the fact that he didn’t understand that kind of deep connection to the fanbase is astounding.
Yeah but how could the GM possibly know that
What your GM being from the “Cult of Kobe” does to a franchise.
Love how many cults feature a guy with sexual assault/rape on his record. Seems almost like a requirement. /s
Nico took me from a guy who watched every Mavs game he could from the late 90s as a kid to the early 2020s as an adult who bought cable subscriptions, merch, and in person tickets to someone who really only checks in with the league at large from time to time on twitter. I legit went from hundreds of dollars a year to not spending a single penny on the team in 3 years. The Adelsons suck themselves, but they should seriously consider suing Nico for billions in lost revenue from all of the former fans like me who can’t really be bothered to even consistently watch the team anymore.
I have watched about 45 seconds of Mavs basketball since that night. I just can’t do it. I have a framed copy of the Dallas Morning News on my wall from after the championship win. I went to multiple games a year. I’ll never give the Mavs another penny until ownership changes.
The Adelsons signed off on the deal.
Stopped being a Mavs fan that night. It still hurts.
What is this clown doing these days? Did he fall upwards again into a better job or something
He has his current position in his instagram profile
That’s kinda fucking hilarious
You gotta pick a lane with this type of thing. He’s chosen to own it. I do not respect him but I can respect this microscopic speck of self-awareness lmao
✨Girl Dad✨
💀Unemployed💀
That’s a good question. What is he doing?
He ruined an entire franchise
Future Lakers GM
nah new ownership isn‘t stupid anymore and has money
Lakers will be a perinial powerhouse like the celtics once they maneuver out of their current situation and get jeanie and rob the fuck out
That trade was some quid pro quo shit is what I’m saying
I also disagree with that, I don’t think any team will become a dynasty with the current aprons. That Celtic dynasty was basically Bill Russell, a couple of other greats and only being 12 teams in the league.
Why would we hire the person that pissed Luka off by trading him
It’s not even the same ownership that was in place when Luka got traded
Y’all got to stop this he was doing the lakers a favor and realize kidd didn’t like Luka and nico was a moron
Nah he got a palm tree planting sponsorship out of all this, 50 mill a year.
He’s useless enough to screw up a non-working position.
realize kidd didn’t like Luka
Is that really true? I haven’t heard that before.
https://sports.yahoo.com/article/jason-kidds-hidden-frustrations-luka-190540459.html
8 teams when the dynasty started
He ruins life of milions Mavs fan.
He’s probably the type to wear it as a badge of honor “I’m a disrupter” in his Linkedin profile
Wouldn’t it be on the owners more than him though ? I’m guessing they could have said no to that trade eh
It’s on the owners as well but I’m not sure why it would be more on them than in the guy hired to make the basketball decisions
Because they could’ve stepped in and nixed the deal instead of letting it go through?
Because the owners are new to basketball and I’d give them a pass for not understanding how much value Luka has as a basketball player in the nba. But for a GM that’s unforgivable
Joe Dumars and Troy Weaver are somehow in charge of a NBA team in 2026 so who knows.
His career is done i think. No self respecting team or company will ever want to hire him. Best he can do is establish more passive income. I’m sure he has that already though.
Cashing checks for doing nothing living the dream
I’m not convinced he doesn’t have a ghost job in basketball still. Just stays behind the scenes
He is still seen at college games and other basketball events. Almost like he is scouting lol
Does everything have to be a conspiracy with sports fans?
Is it that much of a conspiracy to think he might be a consultant behind the scenes, without any team making a big announcement about it?
He/they have to know such an announcement would lead to harassment and trolling from thousands of people.
I think publicly almost destroying the last franchise you were a part of probably kills your employment chances with most other teams. They have no reason to hire him and I’m sure he made enough money in that role to never need to work again. If you’re him, you’re probably at least taking the year off.
So why hire him then? It just doesn’t make sense lmao. Why risk all of that for Nico fucking Harrison? Because if he is it will 1000% get out.
Why would anyone hire him? The decent trades were overpays and/or handled by Lindsey. Narcissist Nico wanted Kuzma instead of PJ.
Probably going to be the next president.
The espn 30 for 30 about this is gonna hit like crack in like 15 years
Do they still make them?
Probably a youtuber ai bot will do that
After lucking into the no. 1 pick, “fans are finally starting to see the vision”
Yeah, this is always the most important piece of evidence whenever this inexplicable trade comes up. I don’t see how it can be interpreted as anything less than a tacit admission that there was something more going on.
It’s conceivable that he’s attempting to reframe it to his advantage after the fact, but I see it as an admission.
It’s not that complicated. He’s just spinning it as if there was a vision because maybe it would get fans off his ass and help him keep his job.
Not an admission, but a desperate last gasp of bullshit artistry as he searched for justifications for the trade.
Oh my god yall are annoying lmao. The dude was a grade A idiot that’s it.
“Lucking” doing some heavy lifting here.
The year prior Luka led the mavs to the finals on a legendary playoff run lol
which is exactly why this trade will never make sense to me, especially after the press conference where he tried to give reasons
dumbass
He so full of it
Every clip from his press conferences aged so poorly lol
Does he know the Mavericks are a basketball team?
What’s basketball? /s
Fuck nico
Why are we back to posting crap about this guy and the trade??
Gotta karma farm bro
At least no other team would do something like that to their fanbase…
Ours is not as bad as that fucking idiot
Nico would have traded Brown for Embiid straight up, maybe even tossed in a pick or two.
Why did you post this on July 25th 2026?
657 reasons and counting.
Yeah but at least he didnt pass on drafting Curry twice.
He was the arrogant moron who showed Curry a presentation made for Durant and hadn’t even bothered to learn Curry’s surname while at Nike, causing him to go to Under Armour.
What happened to him?
I remembered people praising him for the PJ Washington and Gafford Trade. That gave Luka/Kyrie a championship contender team. (The made the finals)
Then, he turned into a “dumb” or “clueless” GM after that irrational trading of Luka Doncic.
Ofc, Mavs would fire him. And they did.
The PJ and Gafford trades were Lindsey’s work, Narcissist Nico tried to trade for Kuzma only to have him tell the Mavs that he wasn’t interested in playing for them.
So dumb
Aloof doesnt begin to cover this asshole’s behavior.
If anybody reading this comment is experiencing imposter syndrome or isn’t confident in their abilities, please for the love of god- forget it.
If this dude can be the GM of an NBA team, you can do it too. Be a Nico Harrison in your own life.
Nico then went and ate a box of crayons after this interview.
checks date
Are we traveling back in time, or is the offseason really that boring, we are reposting year old media clips now?
There’s nothing that he can say that would convince me that the trade wasn’t some under the table deal. Are we really supposed to believe this horseshit? In his last season on the Mavs, he held the #6th highest jersey sales in the entire league. The players above him are Steph, LeBron, Wemby, Giannis, and Tatum. They are all considered to be once in a generation level players maybe other than…. Tatum lmao. You’re telling me that the GM of the entire franchise did not understand this? The cover lies that he told paints the real picture if anything. It’s just totally not believable at all.
There’s is zero chance that anyone means it when they say shit like this. Even if he is that dumb, why would the organization and its president sign off on it? I’m not one for conspiracy theories but let’s be real for a second guys.
is it more believeable that Nico and Patrick Dumont made a single historically bad decision, or that all 30 owners of the NBA approved moving Luka to LA for… reasons? It’s not like the Lakers need help bringing star players to their team.
The worst decision in the history of the league essentially one year after the sale of the organization to a family that is closely tied to Las Vegas casinos then the same team happens to defy all odds and get the #1 draft pick.
Crazy thing to say 🤦
That quote should’ve got him insta-fired
From the dude who was the head of Nike’s endorsements during the epic bag fumbling of Steph Curry comes another keen assessment.
Still the most regarded GM of all time.
Please
Excuse me?
Adelsons
“Here’s your money. Be our fall guy”
No don’t let him get off the hook for all the stuff he did. There’s a reason he and everyone he hired in that franchise is now fired lol
I never get why people absolve what he did. Even if you believe that he got a directive to trade Luka, trading him for nothing while disparaging him publicly is horrible. Literally any fan off the street could have done the same or better.
Does he even know anything about sports? How could a homegrown superstar not be absolutely beloved by fans?
Because he’s not a good defender, duh.
Who cares what this idiot has to say?
This man swindled the entire mavs organization.
“Listen, learn, unite”
- Mavs HQ, a few moments later
he has to be joking right? he has to be joking right?????
“I’m gonna say this without being arrogant. I was an executive at a fortune 200 company. I had budgets bigger than the NBA budget that I was in control of”
Egomaniac doesn’t know how to humble himself to serve a position and thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the room
He didn’t know? Bullshit!
He didn’t care and ownership sure as shit didn’t either.
Screw the fan base how do you look at a generational player and say yeah let’s get rid of that guy. It makes no sense not matter how you frame it. Only thing that maybe makes sense is he had some sort of personal beef and let his ego take over that’s it.
I hate how he lies.
OP chose violence this day
In the hall of fame of terrible trades, it still gets its own wing
Your team just went to the Finals and you traded him the next season. That’s almost unprecedented
How tf did he even get hired in the first place????
This man is dumber than I am and that’s saying something
Don’t piss me off Nico
what an idiot.
Nico deserves an infinite amount of criticism. May his crimes against basketball never be forgotten.
I’ll never be over it
This is the type of garbage my bosses were
anyone in this thread making fun of nico harrison is just embarrassing themselves
if u think nico made this trade then LMAO. Its ownership call and something planned for who knows how long anyway
I don’t care what this clown says, there was definitely a racial component to it
This guy really, really sucked. Sucks. Still sucks. Ego maniacs sucks. Corporate NPCs suck. People who are ignorant on all levels suck. Fuck this guy.
I personally think there is more to the story about the Trade. Maybe Nico got paid millions on the side from the Lakers.
Why are we bringing this up again man us Mavs fans have already suffered let us move on
We now know who Donald Trump’s main advisor was on the Strait of Hormuz.
It wasn’t just that Luka was popular with the fanbase.
It’s that it was a horrific trade from a value perspective. He traded a 25 year old perennial MVP candidate for a broken-down 32 y/o who wasn’t as good as the guy he gave up even when he was young and healthy, and he did it without even shopping around for the best deal.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Basic-Laws-Human-Stupidity/dp/0385546475
Fortune favors the bold, people just can’t comprehend his genius
He was just trying to get Bron to Dallas and you guys messed it all up!
Been a Mavs fan since 2001. I love Luka he’s still my favorite player today.
I rather have Cooper Flagg if I had to choose
I’ve moved on
[ Removed by Reddit ]
Dumbass
That’s just bad media training. Why admit to not knowing something? You 100% lie in that situation.
So we are just posting stuff from a year ago?
I feel like most people following the NBA have seen this press conference.
God I can’t wait for the off-season to end. I’d rather read the nonsense posts than a post that’s over a year old.
What the fuck.
LIES!!
This guy should never be employed by anyone for the rest of his life…
I still think the ownership wanted to get rid of Luka to save money and Nico was the fall guy.
This statement alone should have been a fireable offense
I swear he’s just ragebaiting at this point
How do these people get to make decisions.
Even my girl knew Luca leaving was HUGE
Assanine
He wylin bro smfh
Pain.
Wow what a great opportunity to hate unnecessarily what a dream come true
Not knowing is denial and isn’t a base for the job he had. Wrong position then.
Wonder what Nico is doing now.