Dear Nico Harrison and Dallas Mavericks Organization

By Daniel Taylor

In July of 2016, the most shocking headline in the sports world was 2015 NBA MVP Kevin Durant was heading to the Bay Area to join Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson on the Golden State Warriors. With this signing, former Warriors players Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut made their way to the Dallas Mavericks to join the team that just had a first-round playoff exit after losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder four games to one.

As a young basketball fan who just began to truly become invested in the NBA, transitioning from just a casual viewer, you could have told me that that Dallas team was going to win it all. I saw a starting five of Deron Williams, Wes Matthews, Harrison Barnes, Dallas legend Dirk Nowitzki and Andrew Bogut and thought “man this team has it all,” and to add we had a Curry brother in Seth, 2011 champion JJ Barea, Devin Harris and young guys like Dwight Powell and Justin Anderson. I was convinced that this team had it all. But it didn’t. In fact, the team even lost the first five games in a row before finishing the season 33-49.

Then comes the explosive rookie out of North Carolina State, point guard Dennis Smith Jr. who added some youth and excitement to the Mavs’ roster. Yes that 2017-2018 season was similar to the previous, constant losses and even losing more than before with a finishing record of 24-58, but it didn't matter. There were guys on the roster that were fun to watch. Smith Jr and Dirk were two of my favorite players to watch at the time. Although the Mavs were losing the games to me were still fun to watch.

Fast forward to June 21, 2018. Draft night. I was sold on the idea that the Mavs were drafting the seven-foot center Mo Bamba out of Texas to add some size down low and give Dallas the young/athletic big man it so desperately needed. I remember watching the draft and seeing that Trae Young was drafted that I was actually upset, even knowing the proposed trade for the third pick to Atlanta. Then the summer of 2018 happens and the Mavs sign Deandre Jordan, after attempting to sign him years before. I was sold, I didn’t know much about the kid we traded Young for, but I was still sold, I knew Smith Jr and Dirk, my two favorites from the prior year were still there, and so with the addition of Deandre Jordan, I knew it was going to be a fun year.

I didn’t catch as many games as I’d hoped to start the season, so I wasn’t too sure how this team was going to look. But then the one game I did catch, December 8, 2018, the Mavs are down against the Rockets 102-94 with just over three minutes to play. I’m thinking, “it’s over, they aren’t playing good enough to win, Harden and Paul are going to be too much,” but Slovenian rookie star Luka Dončić completely wiped those thoughts away. Luka scored eight points all by himself and tied the game with a minute and a half to go. This is when I first got thinking we had a chance to win the game. Then he did it again. Another three from Luka put the Mavs ahead and ultimately led to a three-point win, with help from fellow rookie Jalen Brunson. I was sold. I was bought in to both this team and the Luka hype. I knew he was special. I knew the team could be special.

Although the season wasn’t a special one with the team missing the playoffs it didn’t matter. We had Luka, we had a future. As I sat in my US History class junior year of high school, I got the notification that seven-foot Kristaps Porzingis was coming to team up with Luka and I knew that the future was bright. Yes, I was sad about losing Smith, but I was fully bought in on Luka now, so it eased the loss.

The next two years were about the same finish, playoff year with a first-round exit unfortunately both times to the LA Clippers. However, after each year I knew one thing was certain—it was alright, we had Luka, the future was bright. In 2022, losing Porzingis stung but I understood why it needed to be done, it was a nice thought but the injury struggles for the big man and rocky play when he was healthy just wasn’t working, not to mention he didn’t seem to fit the playstyle Dallas had in mind. But it didn’t matter, Luka was looking good, the team was on the right track for the playoffs and only one thing seemed to stand in the way of a deep run—the Phoenix Suns.

After Dallas’ first-round win against Utah, Phoenix looked tough, and they were tough. Going down two games to none in a seven-game series looked like it was going to be too much for Dallas to overcome. But we all know now how the story ended. An improbable comeback led up to one of the most memorable game sevens in recent history. Game seven vs. Phoenix went the way that no one predicted, but one that Dallas fans absolutely loved, a thirty-three-point victory for the Mavs set up a Western Conference Finals matchup that looked like it was a straight shot to the finals. Although it was a quick, five-game series loss to the future NBA champs and Stephen Curry’s Warriors, the Mavericks’ future was at an all-time high.

Fast forward past the dud of a 2022-23 season where the Mavs missed the playoffs and skip to the start of the 23-24 season. The team is the best it’s ever been. Luka, Kyrie, Derrick Jones Jr, Grant Williams and Dereck Lively II, this was the year, all the struggles of the past such as needing a big man, needing another ball handler, needing an athletic wing—all seemed to be solved. Trade deadline happens and the Mavericks continued to upgrade, adding an insanely athletic two-way forward in PJ Washington and paint beast Daniel Gafford at center. This was it, this was OUR time, and it proved to be. The first round of the playoffs was round three of facing the Clippers in the first-round of playoffs, but saw Dallas get over the hump, winning in six games, which was followed up in round two with another six-game series victory against the top-seeded OKC Thunder. Western Conference Finals, again, this time with a different ending. Rather than being on the receiving end of a gentleman’s sweep, the Mavs were the ones sending Minnesota home with a 4-1 series victory. This is it. Mavs were in the finals. Our time was now.

With the finals not going the way most Dallas fans had hoped one thing was certain—we’ll be back. And the offseason looked that way. With the addition of Naji Marshall and future hall-of-famer Klay Thompson, the Mavericks were locked and loaded for another finals run. Although a Luka injury on Christmas Day looked like it was going to hinder the finals plan, the team was still winning, the fans were waiting on the return of Dončić, once he was back, the team was ready.

February 1, 2025, at 11:12 p.m., it hit. That infamous Shams tweet that no one believed:

“BREAKING: The Dallas Mavericks are trading Luka Doncic, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick, sources tell ESPN. Three-team deal that includes Utah.”

No one believed it, fans and players alike thought the tweet was fake, his account got hacked, he was joking with us, everyone thought it couldn’t be real, but it was. The Mavericks just traded their generational 25-year-old superstar for a 31-year-old big man who is known for missing games. Anthony “day-to-day” Davis was a Maverick instead of Luka Dončić. It was bad enough hearing that this trade happened, but worse to hear that it was the Mavericks’ own Nico Harrison that reached out to the Lakers to initiate the trade idea.

It took days to grasp the idea that this could even be real. All the questions wondering, why, how, etc. flooded my mind, and multiple reports from reporters like Tim McMahon bashing Luka, saying he was fat, he was a defensive liability, he had conditioning problems and all of the scrutiny didn’t help. It just didn’t make sense. For a franchise who prided itself on being loyal to the ones who are loyal back, this was the most unloyal thing you could do to a player who we saw grow up. Luka came here as an 18-year-old kid and Dallas fans saw him grow on and off the basketball court, we saw him develop in the league and mature into what could be a top 10 player of all time. People were already projecting him to be in the G.O.A.T debate at the end of his career. Everyone was happy, and then they weren’t.

Then came the protests, the signs, the chants, and even worse: the way the Mavericks organization responded. Tributes to Luka trashed, signs calling for accountability revoked, fans ejected for calling for change. It all didn’t make sense. All of this going on while the statue outside states “Loyalty never fades away.” However, the loyalty to the fans from the organization has quickly faded away, and so the loyalty from the fans has just as quickly been dropped. What once was hope and excitement has turned into heartbreak and betrayal.

Anthony Davis of the past was great, yes, and a part of me was excited to see him paired with Kyrie Irving and hopefully still lead the team to a championship this year. That sliver of excitement lasted three quarters. AD goes down with a groin injury and is out indefinitely, meanwhile in LA, Dončić is finally getting settled in and got his groove back. He’s performing like the Mavericks needed, but in Dallas, everything is falling apart. The “win now” Mavericks that GM Nico Harrison so desperately wanted is fighting for a play-in spot while the “prepare for the future” Lakers are sitting at a top four seed as of right now and are half a game back from the second seed in the west.

To make things even worse, today Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont said that the trade was “about improving the teams future.” The team’s future is one that in my opinion is not one that anyone expected coming off of a finals run last year. Anthony Davis has played three quarters and is only getting older, Kyrie Irving is on a player option that no one would be surprised if he declines, Klay is getting older, Dinwiddie and Exum are set to become free agents and to add to all of it, Davis is set to make $54 million next year, which is about 40% of the team’s total salary. Luka on the other hand is 25, has made the All-NBA team five times in his six-year career, is a five-time all-star, rookie of the year, and 2024 western conference finals MVP. To me, that sounds like your future, not a 32-year-old guy who’s nicknamed “Always Doubtful” or Anthony “street clothes” Davis.

Don’t get me wrong, if Davis can stay healthy and be great here in Dallas, I will fully support him. If Kyrie decides to leave in the off-season this summer and goes somewhere where he can play after he recovers from his ACL tear, I won’t blame him. If every player on the roster requests a trade this summer, I won’t blame them. The lack of respect and loyalty from organization to players in Dallas is clear. The betrayal on the fans has happened and the hope and excitement from the city is gone.

I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know what the future of the team will look like, if the team even stay in Dallas like multiple people are speculating, but I do know one thing. I know that this move by Nico Harrison is one of the worst deals in NBA history and even in sports history overall, not just from a business and team aspect, but from a personal aspect as well. You trade a generational talent who wanted to be here, who wanted to spend his entire career and retire here, a guy who just two weeks before the deal closed on a house because he planned to stay here long term and a guy who was raising his family here in Dallas—and to make it worse, on his way out you call him fat, lazy, a liability and a guy with off the court conditioning issues. The same guy who was getting shots, pain killers, ice wraps and everything he had to do to bring your team, OUR city, a championship.

To you, Nico, basketball is a business, to the city of Dallas, basketball and the Mavericks was our community. It was our way of connecting to one another because everyone knows the Mavericks were the closest team the city had to another championship. But your actions contradict these ideas and served as a slap in the face to everyone who stood loyal to the organization. You turned a city full of hope and excitement into one that is betrayed and hurt. You took our hope from us, Nico. You destroyed a fanbase and showed that loyalty does fade away.