Nico Harrison just flipped a Mavericks disaster into a masterpiece with sneaky moves

Since trading away Luka Doncic at the trade deadline this past season, Dallas Mavericks fans have had it out for Nico Harrison and any move he has made. While trading away Doncic and Quentin Grimes, who continues to make the Mavericks regret trading him away, were without a doubt two non-forgivable decisions, Harrison has quietly done an amazing job this offseason.

Since the beginning of May, Harrison has silently been on a redemption tour after being gifted the No. 1 overall pick, which, by all accounts, has changed the direction of the Mavs' franchise forever. Harrison hasn't just drafted Cooper Flagg with the first overall pick in this year's draft, but he signed D'Angelo Russell to a team-friendly deal to become Dallas' next stopgap point guard while Kyrie Irving remains sidelined with a torn ACL.

Even after signing Russell, Harrison has continued to impress fans with how he handled the departure of Sean Sweeney and almost every assistant coach under Jason Kidd. While the Mavericks could have easily panicked in a situation where their assistant coaches were flying off the board headed to rival teams, Harrison and Kidd stayed poised and reloaded their coaching department in a huge way.

Harrison and Kidd quietly built a championship-winning team of coaches

For starters, Dallas entered this offseason knowing they would likely lose one or more of their assistant coaches after the midseason departure of Alex Jenson. For multiple seasons now, Kidd's coaching staff drew attention from multiple rival teams, but had yet to face any coaches leaving.

While Dallas faced a lot of change throughout the season last year, many were bracing for rival teams to be interested in multiple members of Kidd's coaching staff. Not many fans could have predicted it, but almost every member of Kidd's staff, including Sweeney, Jared Dudley, and God Shammgod, would end up leaving.

It could have been very easy for Harrison and Kidd to add coaches who hadn't proven themselves to Dallas' staff, but the two parties retooled massively.

Frank Vogel spent much of last season being a coaching consultant to Kidd and his staff until inking a new deal to become Kidd's head assistant coach and defensive coordinator. This was not only a move that many fans didn't expect to happen, considering Vogel has been a longtime head coach around the NBA, but he brings championship pedigree to the Mavericks after serving as the Lakers' head coach alongside Kidd when Los Angeles won the NBA Finals in 2020.

Adding Vogel to Kidd's staff was not only a home run deal, but Harrison would continue his revenge tour by adding Phil Handy. Handy was not only a part of the Lakers' coaching staff alongside Vogel and Kidd when they won the championship, but he has long been regarded as one of the best player development coaches in the NBA.

Handy doesn't just bring championship pedigree and one of the best player development minds to the Mavericks, but he also coached Kyrie Irving in his time with the Cleveland Cavaliers. While in Cleveland, Handy helped Irving become the player he is today and flourish into one of the best guards the NBA has ever seen.

In addition to Handy, Harrison also helped orchestrate the addition of Mike Penberthy to Kidd's staff, who also served as one of the Lakers' assistant coaches when they won the championship in the 2020 bubble.

Penberthy hasn't just been a longtime assistant for the Lakers, but was also a former player in Los Angeles and even won a championship in 2001.

While these moves won't help fans forget what Harrison did to Doncic and many of the members close to the Mavericks, he, without a doubt, got Dallas one step closer to playing in the NBA Finals again. It might not take a brilliant coaching staff alone to bring the Mavericks back to championship contention, but adding a staff of Dallas' pedigree to a rookie year Cooper Flagg will help mold him into a potentially great player.