If you thought the Luka Doncic trade couldn’t look worse, you were gravely mistaken. Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison traded Doncic with the intention of building a championship contender. The Mavericks couldn’t be further away from that goal. If that wasn’t already a big enough topic of conversation, Harrison’s poor treatment of franchise legend Dirk Nowitzki has resurfaced.
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Currently, it appears that there isn’t a single person who is a fan of Nico Harrison. Believe it or not, at one point, Mavericks fans adored him. He was the mastermind behind the roster that reached the 2024 NBA Finals. Unfortunately, he shattered his legacy by trading Doncic for Anthony Davis.
It hasn’t helped that the Mavericks are the second-worst team in the West with a 3-7 record. Their shortcomings have led to a closer examination of Harrison, which has prompted fans on Twitter to unearth a lengthy list of his questionable actions. One of the most glaring is how he pushed away Dirk Nowitzki by firing a pivotal figure in the organization.
“The drama within the franchise dates all the way back to August 2023, when Harrison fired a longtime Mavericks staffer, Casey Smith, who was close with both Dirk Nowitzki and Doncic,” Camden Markel of the New York Post said.
Harrison’s decision to fire Casey Smith had a ripple effect throughout the franchise. Smith was a longtime trainer for the Mavericks and was particularly close with Nowitzki and Doncic. Parting ways wasn’t the main issue with Smith’s firing; it was the fashion in which Harrison did it.
“It wasn’t just that Harrison let go a trusted member of the organization; he did so while Smith was out of the state tending to his gravely ill mother in the final weeks of her life,” Markel said.
Smith wasn’t just a trainer on the Mavericks while Nowitzki played; he was one of the NBA legend’s closest friends. Dirk often credited Smith significantly for his 21-year-long NBA career.
Ever since the unceremonious firing, Nowitzki has made a conscious decision to distance himself from the franchise he spent 21 years with. Harrison’s quench for surrounding himself with ‘yes-men’ has led to the frnachise losing their greatest player, and the only one who could potentially dethrone him.
“Over the past year, you could already see the team heading in a different direction,” Nowitzki said on the Campus 41 podcast. “Now we’re seeing the result of that.”
The Mavericks are certainly heading in a different direction, one that may be more negative than positive.
