Hall of Fame former Dallas Mavericks power forward Dirk Nowitzki has a few thoughts on his former team’s decision to ditch general manager Nico Harrison earlier this week.
More news: Bulls, Mavericks Trade Idea Sends $36 Million Star to Dallas
Ahead of last February’s trade deadline, Harrison traded away former five-time All-NBA First Team guard Luka Doncic, plus veteran big men Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris, to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for aging 10-time All-Star center/power forward Anthony Davis, swingman Max Christie, and LA’s 2029 first-round draft pick. Both clubs also rerouted 2025 second-rounders to the Utah Jazz so that the Lakers could offload the contract of guard Jalen Hood-Schifino in the deal.
With the franchise-altering deal done, Harrison pledged that the Mavericks, armed with champion All-Stars Davis and Kyrie Irving, would still be a Finals contender. Instead, they missed the playoffs and fell into the lottery, lucking into the No. 1 pick and Duke phenom Cooper Flagg.
Irving tore his ACL last March, while Davis has been healthy for just 14 bouts since arriving in Dallas. He’s missed eight straight games this year with a calf strain, per Marc Stein of The Stein Line.
“Well, I think there’s just too many distractions, too much going on to keep going this way. This move should have probably happened this summer honestly. I didn’t want this negative energy and this black cloud over the Cooper Flagg era, but here we are now,” Nowitzki said (hat tip to Stein for the transcription). “I just knew … I figured this fan base is a passionate and loyal fan base. I was lucky enough to experience it for 21 years. And I knew they weren’t [going to] just get over it, as people say, or forget about it. They’re extremely passionate.”
Davis is a solid player when he is healthy (which is becoming increasingly more rare), but the roster Harrison had constructed was designed for Doncic, and never made much sense around Davis. Dallas is 3-9 on the young season, while LA is 8-4. Fans had been inundating the Mavericks with chants of “Fire Nico!” until the move was made by governor Patrick Dumont.
“And this trade just made no sense. It made no sense to [the fans]. And, really, there was no explanation for it, either,” Nowitzki continued. ‘You go to the [NBA] Finals the year before. You gave up all these assets to build, really, the team around Luka with some 6-foot-9 wings that all can switch and guard. You had two lob threats with [Daniel] Gafford and [Dereck] Lively and the team was built around him. You added Klay [Thompson when] the shooting was a little bit of an issue in the Finals against Boston. So you did all this.”
Now, the Mavericks and Davis are reportedly considering a divorce by the trade deadline, with the current core’s championship window definitively closed.
Doncic, meanwhile, has looked like an MVP when he’s been available to Los Angeles this season. Six years Davis’ junior at just 26 years old, the 6-foot-6 superstar has been averaging 34.9 points on .476/.308/.775 shooting splits, 9.1 rebounds and 8.9 assists per.
“Going into [the] Christmas Day game, they were 14-3 out of the last 17 games, so they’re just starting to hit their stride and then Luka gets hurt [with a calf injury],” Nowitzki said. “And unfortunately that’s the last game he’s ever played in a Mavs uniform. “It was very sad. It was very sad how that ended and it felt like … the fans feel like they got robbed of actually seeing the end, seeing this through, seeing Luka develop into a hopefully a champion one day and it feels like they never got to see the end to this. So this was very heartbreaking.”
More news: Mavericks Expected to Consider Cutting Ties with $50 Million All-Star by Deadline
For all the latest NBA news and rumors, head over to Newsweek Sports.