The Luka Doncic commerce shocked me, however solely as a result of I didn’t know Nico Harrison but.
In his seemingly endless effort to clarify it, Harrison has given various incriminating press conferences. He’s completely out of contact, displaying a psychology-textbook-level of cognitive dissonance about how “Kyrie, Klay, PJ, Anthony Davis and Energetic… that’s a championship-caliber workforce.”
However by way of all of the noise and bothersome quotes, reporters are beginning to piece collectively an image of who Harrison actually is. And it’s beginning to make all this make sense.
In the most recent of a number of notebook-emptying articles, ESPN’s Tim MacMahon introduced us behind the scenes of Harrison vs. his personal medical employees, and the way he fired longtime Mavericks director of well being and efficiency Casey Smith by way of video name whereas he was visiting his sick mom. The revamped employees by no means gelled with Doncic or his folks, and that will have been one of many many causes Harrison determined to chop bait on the most important fish he’ll ever see.
However I don’t see it that approach. I see a megalomaniac who noticed enemies all over the place, one who was so satisfied of his personal correctness that he constructed a world the place buying and selling Doncic was the appropriate factor to do. And if that’s who Harrison actually is — and each quote paints that image extra clearly — he was all the time going to commerce Luka. As a result of stars are the actual energy figures in any NBA franchise. And Luka, as a star who Harrison didn’t have a beforehand collaborative relationship with from his time at Nike, was all the time going to be a menace to his authority.
Somebody didn’t even must have as a lot sway as Luka for Harrison to view them as a menace. Take Casey Smith, for instance. The longtime coach was a pillar of the Dallas Mavericks’ group, which ought to have made him certainly one of Harrison’s most essential allies. As a substitute, Harrison noticed somebody with the potential to undercut his choices and supply an alternate viewpoint, so he eliminated him. In keeping with one supply MacMahon quoted, “He was one hundred pc threatened by him.” One other supply instructed ESPN that his firing as a result of he was “too adverse.”
Till now, I didn’t have a learn on Harrison as an individual, since I didn’t know the way an actual individual may make such a boneheaded determination. The place was the dissenting voice? The place was the one man within the room that stated “uh, perhaps let’s not commerce Luka Doncic”? The place was the logic?
Basically, NBA groups make rational choices. You possibly can disagree with their causes, however teams managing billion-dollar enterprises don’t merely do issues “simply because.” Typically it’s a large threat from a workforce backed right into a nook, however it’s by no means completely inexplicable. That’s why I couldn’t perceive this commerce, and why so many have turned to conspiracy to clarify it.
But it surely’s turning into more and more clear that tin foil hats aren’t obligatory, and this commerce wasn’t performed by the group; it was performed by one irrational actor — Harrison — who had develop into so satisfied that he was in cost that he started making irrational choices to fortify his place.
When Mark Cuban was round, Harrison could have had some oversight. However when the brand new possession group got here in, it’s potential Harrison painted them a rosy image of how completely he was managing all the things and the way little assist he wanted from them. Cuban’s story during the last year-plus since telling the workforce — from saying he was left accountable for basketball operations to not even being instructed of the Luka commerce till after it was too late to cease it as a result of “In Nico We Belief” — definitely signifies as a lot
And it’s bizarre to say now, however to be honest to the Mavericks’ new possession group, the Dumont household, Harrison was legitimately doing job; he had the Irving, P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford trades to level to, in addition to the Dereck Energetic draft choose. However he appears to have parlayed these successes into eradicating anybody who may disagree with him.
Maybe the interior sanctum of Mavericks basketball operations grew to become a sycophantic circle of yes-men, or maybe Harrison had simply created a fantasy world the place the opinions of others not mattered… or had been even ready to be provided. Regardless of the state of affairs, Harrison seems to have been cravenly questing for sole decision-making energy, and noticed just one individual left who may resist him: Doncic himself.
And herein lies Harrison’s biggest crime: not buying and selling Luka, not incessantly attempting to defend it, however what led to all of it: pondering it was about him, solely him, and that eradicating people who may query his primacy was the one option to survive in one of the vital unforgiving professions on this planet. That was what destroyed Dallas.
As a result of it isn’t about Nico Harrison. It’s concerning the gamers, Doncic amongst them. They’re the one ones who determine if the Mavericks win or lose, and NBA executives are at their finest when everybody forgets about them. There’s a purpose for his or her most typical job title of GM: they’re managers, tasked with placing everybody ready to succeed and letting them just do that. As soon as Harrison made the Mavericks about Nico, it was already over.
