“Nico Harrison Wasn’t the Culprit”: Paul Pierce Speaks Candidly On Mavericks GM’s Firing

Dallas Mavericks fans were thrown a bone yesterday following the team’s poor start to the 2025–26 NBA season. The organization fired Nico Harrison from his general manager role, a move that had been nine months in the making after he helped orchestrate the Luka Doncic trade from the Mavs to the Lakers last February.

As much as Harrison deserved to get the boot in the eyes of the average fan, it still doesn’t fix the deeper problems Dallas is facing. The team simply isn’t very big. Anthony Davis is out again with an injury, and Kyrie Irving isn’t expected back from his ACL tear anytime soon. No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg is being asked to do far more than anticipated, and despite his best efforts, he can’t carry this squad to victory on his own. Role players like Klay Thompson haven’t helped much either.

The Mavs probably thought they could win back some goodwill by sending Harrison packing. But the truth is, he couldn’t have made that tremendously naive deal on his own. Ownership had to sign off on it. It had to go through several channels. Harrison just happened to be the easiest target, albeit one who probably earned it. That’s at least what NBA legend Paul Pierce thinks about the situation.

The Hall of Famer spoke about the Mavs’ big firing during his recent appearance on the No Fouls Given and Playmaker program. “That’s more by popular demand,” he claimed. “I got to believe that Nico wasn’t the culprit in all the stuff that went down.”

Pierce went on to explain that Dallas, on paper, looked like it could be a competent and competitive squad. Obviously, that isn’t the case. “Getting Cooper Flagg, they thought they had hope. It was like, ‘Oh, okay, we can still be a playoff team. Maybe a contender.’ But you have to understand, somebody got to be the scapegoat.”

Team owner Patrick Dumont was spotted speaking to a fan less than a week ago about how he hoped to right the wrong of the Luka trade. This was clearly a major step in doing that, even if he seems to be getting away with his hands just as dirty as Nico’s.

“It’s easy for the fans who are disgruntled at the beginning of the season to look and point the finger at Nico based on how things are operating right now. Based on the Luka trade. So he became the major face for why they are where they are now,” added Pierce. It’s real talk from The Truth, who also mentioned that somehow, head coach Jason Kidd remained safe from the team’s poor start.

At the end of the day, the Mavericks can only play the blame game for so long before reality sets in. Firing Harrison might buy ownership some temporary goodwill, but it doesn’t change the fact that this roster is thin, unbalanced, and built around too many “what-ifs.”

Dallas traded away its franchise cornerstone and is now paying the price for trying to shortcut a rebuild without a clear plan. Until the front office takes real accountability and builds a sustainable direction around Cooper Flagg and whoever’s left standing, all the scapegoating in the world won’t fix what’s broken in the Big D.

About the author

Joseph Galizia

Joseph is a Las Vegas based actor and circus performer. For the last seven years he's had the pleasure of covering sports for multiple outlets, including the Lifestyles section of Sports Illustrated. In that time, he's conducted over 50 interviews with athletes, filmmakers, and company founders to further cement his footprint in the journalism world. He's excited to bring that skillset to the SportsRush, where he'll be covering the NBA news cycle.

Read More