Nico Harrison's clueless Luka Doncic bombshell proves Mavericks hired the wrong guy

Even though the Dallas Mavericks' 2024-25 season finally came to an end last Friday after suffering a blowout loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in a win-or-go-home play-in game, the fallout from Dallas' season is something fans and media will be discussing all offseason long. Barring the likely re-signing of Kyrie Irving, fans don't have any indication as to what this front office and its leader in Nico Harrison, will elect to do this summer.

Harrison held his end-of-season press conference on Monday afternoon, which was open to all media members after he was prompted to hold a private media session regarding the Doncic situation by Governor Patrick Dumont last week.

There wasn't anything too new in Monday's conference from Harrison compared to last week, but Harrison did drop a few more quotes that prove just how out-of-touch with reality he was when making the Doncic trade.

Nico Harrison never understood what Luka Doncic meant to Dallas

"I did know that Luka was important to the fanbase," Harrison said on Monday afternoon. "I didn't quite know to what level."

While Harrison didn't get to witness all of Doncic's miraculous moments with the Mavericks given he wasn't hired as GM until the summer of 2021, it's wild to think he truly couldn't gather an idea of how much Doncic meant to the city of Dallas and their fans given he's inside the walls of the organization everyday and got to see Doncic play countless times.

Harrison clearly doesn't understand the magnitude of trading a 25-year-old superstar away before he could even reach the middle of his prime, and furthermore, he definitely didn't value or covet the relationship the city of Dallas had built with Doncic over the past seven years. Doncic was a beloved figure in the community and was always extremely humble, which made Mavericks fans proud to call him the leader of their franchise beyond his on-court impact.

The basketball reasons for making the Doncic trade are hard to justify on any account, but the off-court reasons make even less sense considering the negative financial impact Dallas' franchise has already seen take effect. Doncic was an extremely marketable superstar and a steward of the Dallas community after taking the mantle as Dallas' next European superstar when the torch was passed from Dirk Nowitzki to him in the 2018-19 season, but Harrison failed to recognize this line of logic whatsoever.

It's bewildering to think Harrison was able to make this move to this day, but Harrison was quietly setting the stones in place to make this move when he made multiple moves to fire people in Dallas' organization that were close to Doncic such as former head athletic trainer Casey Smith, and he was subsequently able to take advantage of an ownership group who doesn't have a firm grasp of how the NBA works.

Harrison will continue to vouch for making the Doncic trade given his position in this instance, but nothing he says will make Mavericks fans view him or what he did on February 1 any differently. Harrison's Monday presser further proved that Doncic simply didn't fit his idealistic vision for building a defense-first contender due to Doncic's inability to take his conditioning or off-court habits as seriously as Harrison would've liked, and that's the primary reason Harrison traded Doncic.

Harrison's decision will only get less popular over time, and though he clearly wants to move past this situation as much as anybody, he put himself in an inescapable pit by making this trade. He will continue to get scrutinized by fans and media every time Doncic sees success with the Los Angeles Lakers, and every time the Mavericks fail to succeed because of not having Doncic around any longer.