Mavericks' hiring of Nico Harrison is even more laughable if latest rumors are true

In June 2021, Mark Cuban hired Nico Harrison to be the Dallas Mavericks' next general manager, but according to ESPN's Tim MacMahon, it wasn't because Cuban trusted Harrison. MacMahon wrote that Cuban believed "Harrison wasn't qualified to be the primary decision-maker for the team's basketball operations."

So, why did the Mavericks hire Harrison in the first place?

MacMahon wrote that Cuban "privately insisted he never intended to give Harrison autonomy and hired him with the hopes that his relationships with players and agents would help the Mavs reverse their long-running trend of finishing as runner-ups in free agency."

Harrison spent nearly 20 years at Nike before joining the Mavericks, working his way up to vice president of North American basketball operations. Cuban wanted to tap into that side of Harrison, rather than let him be the sole decision-maker for Dallas.

Cuban only thought that he'd still lead the Mavericks' basketball operations after the Adelson and Dumont families acquired the majority stake in the franchise at the end of 2023. He believed his 27 percent ownership stake carried far more weight than it did. Harrison no longer wanted to go through Cuban, so after the sale, he formed a relationship with Patrick Dumont, which, as everyone knows, led to the Luka Dončić trade.

Cuban never trusted Harrison to lead the Mavs' operations

Dumont fired Harrison on Nov. 11, and since then, Cuban has been back in the fold, but not in his previous role of leading operations. A source told MacMahon that Cuban is a "consultant, not a decision-maker."

If Harrison had looped Cuban in on the Dončić trade talks, he would've been adamantly against it. That deal never would've gone down if Cuban didn't sell his majority stake, but you know what? It also wouldn't have happened if Cuban hadn't hired Harrison as GM. There can't be another person out there who would've traded Dončić, not in the way that Harrison did.

In the end, Cuban's decision to hire Harrison came back to bite not only him, but every single Mavericks fan. His pre-trade deadline moves in 2024 helped lead the Mavericks to a surprise NBA Finals run, but that was forgotten once he traded the lead player who helped get them there.

You don't trade a player as talented as Luka and come out better for it on the other side, especially when you don't get nearly enough in return. MacMahon also reported that Dallas will "explore" a Davis trade before the deadline, which, to be clear, is expected, but again, none of this should've ever happened in the first place. So much for Harrison's championship aspirations, huh?

He's finally out of the way, but he still left quite a mess behind. Dumont, who is also at fault for trusting Harrison on the Dončić trade, is trying to lead Dallas out of it. He doesn't have the basketball knowledge or experience to do so, which is part of why Cuban is back around.

You can't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but hopefully, that day will come for Mavericks fans.