New NBA rankings expose Nico Harrison's overlooked trade that will doom Mavericks

For the final two months of the regular season, the Dallas Mavericks were the laughingstock of the NBA due to one man's move.

Just before midnight on February 1, Nico Harrison decided to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis. Harrison had concerns with Doncic's conditioning, injuries, leadership, and more, and he thought the best action plan was to trade him in the middle of the year in the season after he was third place in MVP voting. He thought that the Mavs would be better off without him, so he moved on without consulting anyone, except for Patrick Dumont (who isn't a basketball mastermind to begin with).

Following the trade, Dallas plummeted in the standings and ultimately ended up missing the playoffs after losing in the second round of the Play-In Tournament to the Memphis Grizzlies. The Doncic trade destroyed an entire era of Mavericks basketball due to Harrison's insistence on trading him, but another move of Harrison's at the trade deadline has panned out horribly as well.

Grimes was built for the Mavs' future but Harrison traded him away

A few days after trading Doncic to the Lakers, Harrison decided that he wanted to trade Quentin Grimes to the Philadelphia 76ers for Caleb Martin. He was someone whom Harrison had been eyeing for a while, and his obsession with trading for "his guys" backfired once again for the Mavs.

Dallas gave up the better player in the deal while also losing an extremely valuable second-round pick, but Harrison didn't see it that way. He believed that Martin was the better player in that deal, and that couldn't be further from the truth. Especially when taking into account how dominant Grimes was for the Sixers.

In 28 games for Philadelphia, Grimes averaged 21.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 1.5 steals per game while shooting 46.9 percent from the field and 37.3 percent from downtown. Grimes was on an absolute tear during his time with the Sixers, and the newest NBA rankings reveal just how special he truly is.

In FanSided's NBA 99 update, Grimes was ranked as the 76th-best player in the NBA. This is a major honor for Grimes, as he truly took the NBA by storm over the final two months of the season, and it shows how badly Harrison messed up by trading him.

Grimes showcased that his offensive game was much more advanced than anyone gave him credit for during his stint with the New York Knicks and Detroit Pistons over spurts during his time with the Mavs, but Harrison disregarded that. He wanted to acquire a player who he thought would be an elite wing defender for their hopeful playoff run in Martin (although Grimes is an outstanding defender as well), and this trade will haunt the Mavs for years to come if Grimes develops into a star and Martin doesn't pan out in Dallas.

Grimes' No. 76 ranking would make him the third-best player on the Mavs (if only going off the rankings), as he would only trail Davis and Kyrie Irving. Grimes would have been the perfect player to re-sign this summer and keep for their future, since he is only 24 years old, and he was ready to contribute for the Mavs right now. Harrison knew that his team was going to lose tons of self-created offense with Doncic gone, and Grimes was one of the only players on the team who could generate his own offense consistently.

Harrison being set on winning the NBA Finals as soon as possible and trading the better and younger player in the Grimes-Martin swap is confusing to say the absolute least, and Mavericks fans' eyes will be glued to Grimes' trajectory to see just how badly they lost this trade. Harrison's bets against young guards have not worked out for him over his time as the Mavs' GM (Jalen Brunson and Luka Doncic), and Grimes is in contention to join this list.