Harrison didn’t just send Luka away, he made every decision wrong — from Klay to Grimes

Translator's Note: This article was originally published on Yahoo, and the author is Dan Devine. The data in the article are as of the time of publication of the original article (November 12, local time). The opinions in the article have nothing to do with the translator and the platform.

The Luka Doncic trade was the ultimate mistake, but Nico Harrison has been far more wrong than that since the Mavericks reached the Finals.

Well, after nine months of trading away one of the best and most popular players in the world and plowing a team that had made it to the NBA Finals to the bottom of the Western Conference, Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison is finally out.

Last weekend, the Mavericks first suffered a disastrous defeat to the previously sluggish Grizzlies, and then narrowly defeated the Washington Wizards, who only had 1 win and 10 losses. After losing to the Bucks on Monday night, the Mavericks started the 2025-26 NBA regular season with a record of 3 wins and 8 losses. It is worth mentioning that the Wizards' only victory this season came against the Mavericks.

The record of 3 wins and 8 losses ranks second to last in the Western Conference, only better than the poor Pelicans - and just last week, the Pelicans just defeated the Mavericks. The Mavericks' offensive efficiency ranks 29th in the league, only higher than the Pacers' dismal record. A week and a half ago, the Pacers' Aaron Nesmith had a chance to kill the Mavericks with an open three-pointer, but unfortunately failed to hit it.

Like the Pacers, today's Mavericks are also missing their All-Star point guard. In fact, it's the lack of two All-Star point guards. One of them, Kyrie Irving, is still recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and has yet to return to the court.

And what about the other one? You may still have the impression that Harrison traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Today's Mavericks offense is weak, and No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg has to shoulder the burden of star-level creation with the ball (although he performed well in the game against the Bucks, scoring 26 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists); while Luka Doncic got off to a hot start with the Lakers. As the main initiator of the league's top ten offensive efficiency teams, he led the Lakers to a record of 8 wins and 3 losses. At the same time, Anthony Davis, the team's cornerstone who had high hopes as a return for Doncic's trade, once again missed the game. All of this was doomed to Harrison's dismissal.

Harrison's departure can be called a shocking and rapid fall - he once served as the founder of the division championship team and stood on the edge of the NBA Hall of Honor, but sadly left the league within a year and a half.

What Harrison needs to face is by no means just the long-term negative impact of Doncic's deal.

After the 2024 NBA Finals, his decision to introduce Klay Thompson with a three-year $50 million contract also failed to work. The 35-year-old shot only 31.4% from the field this season and as low as 26.7% from three-point range, which forced head coach Jason Kidd to move the former All-Star to the bench and use Russell instead.

Kidd was forced to make this adjustment not only because of Thompson's personal struggles, but also because the Mavericks' offense was extremely ineffective with the ball without Irving and Flagg (an 18-year-old player who was playing point guard for the first time in his life) without a professional point guard. Russell, the transitional player Harrison signed in the free market, also performed unsatisfactory, shooting only 37.3% from the field and 27.8% from three-point range. He played 54 minutes in three starting games and scored only 24 points. In these 54 minutes, the Mavericks lost 57 points to their opponents, and then he was moved back to the bench in Monday's game.

Today's Mavericks are in urgent need of players who can not only provide stable three-point firepower, but also have the ability to take on more ball-handling organizational responsibilities. At this time, you may be thinking: How good would it be if Grimes was still on the team? At the end of last season, Grimes showed richer offensive methods, and this season his performance is even more impressive - averaging 31 minutes per game, contributing 17.2 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.4 assists, shooting 56% on two-pointers, 40% on three-pointers, and averaging more than 6 three-pointers per game.

Unfortunately, Grimes is now playing in Philadelphia because Harrison sent him there at the 2025 trade deadline in exchange for Caleb Martin - Martin suffered a hip injury late last season and has only played 81 minutes for the Mavericks so far this season, with more personal fouls (16) than points (14 points).

Harrison made this deal partly to rebalance the Mavericks' lineup. Due to the acquisition of Max Christie in the Doncic-Davis trade, the Mavericks suddenly had multiple 3D shooting guards, and Christie still had two years of guaranteed contracts, and Grimes was about to become a restricted free agent (In the end, Grimes accepted Philadelphia's one-year qualifying offer of $8.7 million and chose to stay with the team). Christie's performance for the Mavericks is indeed good - he averaged 29.9 minutes per game this season, scored 13.1 points, and shot 49%/45%/81% from the field goal/three-point/free throw percentage respectively - but he does not have the potential to become a ball-handling organizer and cannot assume a more important ball-holding role when the team is in urgent need of more offensive creators.

And such ball-holding organizers, such as Austin Reeves-he was a player for the Lakers, and Lakers general manager Pelinka firmly refused to include him in the trade negotiations between Doncic and Davis. Some experts believe Harrison's failure to land Reeves was a serious mistake in decision-making. Last season, Reeves became one of only 10 players in the league to average at least 20 points and 5 assists per game with a true shooting percentage of 60%; earlier this season, when Doncic was sidelined with knee and finger injuries, Reeves averaged 40 points and 10 assists in three games..

On the one hand, Harrison has indeed withstood the impact of the Mavericks' serious injury wave-if a team is missing its first-choice point guard, power forward and center at the same time, few teams can maintain a good competitive state (Liveley missed 8 games due to a knee injury, Gafford missed 5 games due to an ankle sprain). But on the other hand, this is also the downside risk inherent in the lineup Harrison built.

Building a team around Davis and Irving inherently carries great uncertainty - both have missed a large number of games due to injuries in multiple seasons. Once one or both of them are injured at the same time, the Mavericks will be in danger. Nearly 70% of the salary cap is spent on Davis, Irving and Thompson, leaving the Mavericks with almost no salary flexibility to introduce role players who can step up when the team needs it. After losing to the Celtics in the Finals, Harrison focused too much on the team's height and defensive capabilities, resulting in the team's serious deficiencies in shooting and organization.

Although the Mavericks ranked fifth in the league in defensive efficiency before Monday's game against the Bucks, they are still one of the worst teams in the NBA. Defense may win championships, but only if you have an offensive engine strong enough to carry your team far enough into the playoffs to give defense a chance to shine. After losing Luka and Kyrie, Harrison no longer has such an offensive engine

After Harrison completed perhaps the most decisive transaction in the history of the Mavericks, he explained that trading 25-year-old Doncic for 31-year-old Davis "fits in with our time plan."

"If you combine him (Davis) with Kyrie and other players, he completely fits our time plan of winning the championship now and winning the championship in the future," Harrison said at the time. "In my opinion, the future is three or four years from now. As for the future ten years from now, , I'm not sure. By then, they may have fired me and Kidd, or we've screwed ourselves up."

Let alone ten years: Things have deteriorated far faster than expected, and Harrison's tenure with the Mavericks came to an end on Tuesday. The lesson here is this: Things can change incredibly fast in the NBA...especially when you trade away a superstar in his prime.