{"id":123092,"date":"2025-02-10T06:57:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T11:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=123092"},"modified":"2025-02-10T06:57:02","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T11:57:02","slug":"mavericks-gm-nico-harrison-hot-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/10\/mavericks-gm-nico-harrison-hot-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks GM Nico Harrison Already On the Hot Seat in Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The aftermath of the\u00a0<\/span>Luka Doncic<\/span><\/a>\u00a0trade continues to unravel amongst the\u00a0<\/span>Dallas Mavericks fanbase.<\/span><\/a> Where is GM Nico Harrison?<\/span> He’s smack-dab in the middle. To make matters worse, Doncic is expected to make his Los Angeles Lakers debut Monday night, while\u00a0<\/span>Anthony Davis<\/span><\/a>\u00a0heads to the\u00a0<\/span>sidelined for a lengthy injury absence<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>The Dallas faithful and several NBA media members did not meet the trade well.<\/span> Now, with AD’s injury, the scrutiny will likely pile up. Is this the beginning of the end of Harrison’s tenure in Dallas? If Luka succeeds immediately in LA, what does that mean for Harrison’s job status?<\/span><\/p>\n

Mavericks GM Nico Harrison Already On the Hot Seat in Dallas<\/h2>\n

Former NBA Player Claims Mavericks GM Nico Harrison ‘Can’t Keep Your Job On This One’<\/h3>\n

The pressure is on Harrison after his daring and risky trade last week. Maybe he expected some backlash. Did he expect the level to reach fan protests in the streets? It’s unlikely. Nevertheless, Harrison is in a tight spot. The Mavericks just went several weeks without their past superstar. Now, the one they just traded for will keep them without a superstar again. Losing Davis spells bad tidings for the Mavs, who sit in the eighth seed in the West and only three games above .500.<\/p>\n

Harrison’s actions remain in question, and that is likely to continue for some time. The question is, how much time is left in his hourglass? Former NBA player\u00a0<\/span>Gilbert Arenas<\/span><\/a>\u00a0doesn’t hold high hopes for Harrison and believes he could get fired if Luka succeeds in Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/span>Arenas talked about it on his podcast<\/span><\/a>, Gil’s Arena<\/span><\/a><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou just can\u2019t keep your job on this one. [If] You win a championship, right, Kyrie leaves your team goes to ___. Now you don\u2019t have no future. You\u2019re fired. This is going to come right back at you, \u2018damn if we had Luka, because Lakers is winning the champ, Luka\u2019s winning the championship in LA, that\u2019s 100 per cent.\u2019 So you can say, haha, today\u2026 he\u2019s still gonna match it, no matter what, that organization [Lakers] is going to win a championship around him.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

What Can Be Done to Reverse the Narrative?<\/h3>\n

For one thing, AD returning from injury and leading the Mavericks on a deep playoff run is Harrison’s best bet in the short term for some relief. However, the short term is exactly what the Mavs have in front of them, given AD’s age and injury history.\u00a0<\/span>Luka and the Lakers<\/span><\/a>\u00a0have many years to come, provided the Lithuanian superstar remains in LA long-term. As for Harrison, the off-season is an opportunity to build on Davis further. There is no guarantee that\u00a0<\/span>Kyrie Irving<\/span><\/a>\u00a0will stay in Dallas after this season concludes. He can become a free agent if he declines his $42 million player option for the 2025-26 season.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speculation has opened the Mavs to rumors of wanting\u00a0<\/span>Kevin Durant<\/span><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to play with AD and possibly Kyrie eventually. Could the offseason see Harrison take another large swing at another superstar? If he can add another star with Davis and Kyrie, it’s possible the fires in Dallas can be quenched, at least temporarily. If Doncic goes on to win a title or multiple, and Dallas does not, then as Arenas stated, it could mean the end of Harrison. <\/span><\/p>\n

Dallas’s situation is not looking good at present. The longer AD remains out, the further the Mavericks can fall in the standings. The trade for Davis was meant for the short term. Well, the Mavs’ short-term situation isn’t looking up right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Jerome Miron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The aftermath of the\u00a0Luka Doncic\u00a0trade continues to unravel amongst the\u00a0Dallas Mavericks fanbase. Where is GM Nico Harrison? He’s smack-dab in the middle. To make matters worse, Doncic is expected to make his Los Angeles Lakers debut Monday night, while\u00a0Anthony Davis\u00a0heads to the\u00a0sidelined for a lengthy injury absence. The Dallas faithful and several NBA media members […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":123096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,1608,26,62],"tags":[240,69,406,38,1133],"class_list":["post-123092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","tag-anthony-davis","tag-kevin-durant","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123092"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123108,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123092\/revisions\/123108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}