Mark Cuban revealed that Dirk Nowitzki wasn’t on board with his decision to hire Nico Harrison, the architect of the infamous Luka Doncic trade, as the team’s general manager in 2021.
“Dirk was like, ‘yeah, I don’t know if that’s the way to go,’ so to his credit, he called it.”
Cuban hired Harrison, a former vice president at Nike with no NBA front office experience, while he was still the majority owner of the team. In his role at Nike, Harrison had forged relationships with numerous star players, something Cuban hoped the Mavericks could leverage in free agency.
“I explained to [Nowitzki] that I needed somebody who had relationships with players already, and that was what we were missing, that was our weak suit,” Cuban said. “We hadn’t had all that much success on luring top-notch free agents.”
Under Harrison’s watch, the Mavericks made a trip to the Western Conference finals in 2022 and to the NBA Finals in 2024, but lost goodwill with fans after the trade of Doncic.
Harrison traded Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers on Feb. 1, 2025 for Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick.
“[Harrison] knew [Davis] from the time he was 13,” Cuban said.