Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison met with a very limited, hand-selected number of Dallas media on Tuesday (much to the surprise of a lot of media members who regularly cover the team). Harrison repeatedly defended his shocking February decision to trade Luka Doncic to the Lakers, using the phrase “defense wins championships” repeatedly during the session, according to multiple reports. Here are some quotes from the meeting, via Tim MacMahon at ESPN, Christian Clark at The Athletic, and Tim Cato.
“There’s no regrets on the trade,” said Harrison… “Part of my job is to do the best thing for the Mavericks, not only today, but also in the future, and some of the decisions I’m going to make are going to be unpopular. That’s my job, and I have to stand by it.”
Nico: “My obligation is to the Dallas Mavericks, it’s what’s the best interest of the Dallas Mavericks, and that’s the most important thing. Some of those decisions are going to be unpopular maybe to Dirk and maybe to the fans, but my obligation is to the Dallas Mavericks.”
— tim cato (@tim_cato) April 15, 2025
“When you look at this trade, we targeted A.D. with our philosophy of defense wins championships,” Harrison said. “We wanted a two-way player to lead our team, and that was Anthony Davis. Everybody’s going to have their critics. … But we got what we wanted… The team post-trade that was intended to be on the floor … that’s a championship-caliber team. You guys were able to see it for 2 1/2 quarters. Unfortunately, that’s a small sample size.”
Mavericks fans are not going to get to see that team for most or all of next season as Kyrie Irving recovers from a torn ACL. Any debate about whether this is really a championship-caliber team is on hold for the foreseeable future.
Harrison is correct that a GM should trust his instincts and convictions, and not hesitate to make what he sees as a move that betters the franchise. However, when others are waving red flags about the trade, a smart GM puts aside his ego and thinks from outside his perspective. In this trade, one red flag is that, as highly as one might think of Anthony Davis (and he had an All-NBA season before injuries limited his game), he is six years older than Doncic — trading stars to get that much older is not wise. The other major red flag is this: If you’re keeping this trade under wraps because you know there will be massive fan backlash to the idea, maybe enough to kill the trade, is this really a wise trade? Not just from a basketball sense but from a fan sense — the NBA is an entertainment business, angering the people who are fans and pay for your product is just not smart.
Harrison is convinced he will be vindicated with this trade in time. At least he doesn’t have to worry about people forgetting this trade and not wanting to talk about it. For now, he can watch Anthony Davis and the Mavericks in the play-in Wednesday night while Luka Doncic and the No. 3 seed Lakers rest, waiting for their first game of the playoffs on Saturday evening.
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