Mavericks' Luka Doncic crisis worsens after bizarre Nico Harrison stunt

Even with the 2025 NBA Play-In Tournament beginning tomorrow for the Dallas Mavericks in Sacramento, the team is in the middle of one of the darkest times in franchise history, considering they traded the franchise cornerstone, Luka Doncic, to the Los Angeles Lakers a month and a half ago. The city of Dallas has been furious ever since the trade went down, showing their displeasure for this shocking move with "fire Nico" chants aimed at GM Nico Harrison at Mavs home games and even holding a protest outside of the arena back in February.

Fans never expected for Dallas to ever move on from Doncic, and after the trade went down, things have been getting worse and worse for the Mavericks, and the state of the team is dangerously snowballing out of control less than a year after their third NBA Finals appearance in franchise history.

From slamming Doncic on the way out the door to kicking out fans for voicing their opinions at games and more, the Mavericks have been in a PR crisis ever since Nico Harrison decided to trade Doncic to the Lakers, and the team continues to make things worse for themself at every corner.

Nico Harrison is breaking the silence in the worst way possible

The most recent development in Dallas' Doncic crisis was the team deciding to hold a private media session at the American Airlines Center for selected members of the media to speak with Harrison and CEO Rick Welts on Tuesday morning, and there will be no cameras or audio-recording devices allowed. This is the first time that Harrison will have a media availibility since the morning after the trade when he spoke in Cleveland, and this is the first time that he will speak since the Quentin Grimes trade as he did not show up to Anthony Davis, Caleb Martin, and Max Christie's introductory press conference.

Not allowing all of Dallas' local media to have the chance to speak with Harrison, the man who decided to trade Doncic in the middle of the night at the beginning of February, is a questionable decision from the organization, to say the absolute least, and the timing of it is unacceptable.

The organization allowed Harrison to wait until the day before the biggest game of the year for the Mavericks to speak to the media, and all of the chatter around the Mavs will quickly shift from their play-in game against the Sacramento Kings tomorrow to soon-to-be revealed quotes from Harrison's closed media session with a handful of local media members.

Dallas' decision-making when it comes to handling the aftershock of the Doncic trade continues to be the most puzzling part about all of this, and rather than doing whatever they can to try to make fans happy and engaged again, they are showing that things are very, very different inside of the Mavericks' walls.

This is no longer the organization that fans loved and cherished for years during Dirk Nowitzki's career and the end of the Doncic era, and every decision surrounding the Doncic trade has reflected just that.