For the better part of three decades, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has been the most vilified figure in local sports. A little more than a week ago, the baseline ire routinely focused on Jones hit an all-time high after the front office’s nonsensical solution to the Cowboys’ maddeningly failed “all-in” 2024 season seemed to be one of the most lazy and uninspiring coaching hires in franchise history. It would have seemed impossible for the power-mad octogenarian to ever be unseated as the most hated sports-oriented man in town. Enter: Mavs General Manager Nico Harrison.
Out of nowhere late Saturday night, Harrison Leroy Jenkins-ed himself into the realm of the abhorrent with a staggering decision that even Jerry’s wildest Johnny Walker-addled judgment could never top. In a stunning move that literally every person in sports — from fans, both hardcore and casual, to the army of media talking heads, plus players, both current and former, and NBA executives, all of whom still grasping at explanations — Harrison unilaterally shipped superstar Luka Dončić, a universally agreed-upon generational talent just entering the prime of his career, mid-season, to a hated conference rival for seemingly pennies on the dollar.
And just like that, 30-some-odd years of fanbase alienation evaporated for Jerry Jones and has been refocused and distilled into much higher concentrations and is now aimed squarely at Harrison.
The trade that sent Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for an aging, injury-prone Anthony Davis and a 2029 first-round pick is certainly the most explosive trade in Metroplex sports history, probably the most so in NBA history, perhaps even in pro sports history. Comparisons for the move just don’t exist. Never has such an obvious future all-time great been given up on so early in their career. At least not unprompted by the player.
Vague allusions to Harrison’s rationale have been floating up to the surface over the last few days — Luka’s lack of concern for conditioning, his defensive liabilities, his constant bickering with the officials, his drinking problems (?), the looming $350M supermax extension just over the horizon — but none of them, not even the sum total of them, seem like enough to justify an apparent determination on Harrison’s part to exile the face of the Mavericks’ franchise. Fans are letting him know the bewilderment, the betrayal, and the rage they feel. From the practically funereal vigils held outside of the American Airlines Center to the countless posts of anger and confusion on social media to promises of refusal to renew season tickets or watch the team going forward, fans are demonstrating just how deeply one man thrust a dagger into their little sports hearts. The team’s social media accounts have lost more than a million followers since Sunday. Many more will follow suit.
The irony is, just days ago, in the eyes of many fans, Harrison might have been bordering on infallibility. Since he took charge of basketball operations in the summer of 2021, the former Nike exec has been one of the busiest roster builders in the league. He’s made a series of bold moves — many of them controversial — intent on building around Dončić as the Mavs’ superstar centerpiece. He added big names like Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson while bravely cutting ties with others like Jalen Brunson and Kristaps Porzingis. He single-handedly turned a historic franchise deficiency into a strength at the center position with what might be the game’s current best two-man rotation, in addition to stockpiling tons of depth scoring and off-the-bench role players. His efforts, in just three years, have already culminated in two conference finals appearances and the club’s first trip to the NBA Finals since 2011. With his fingerprints on nearly every facet of the lineup, it could be fairly argued that, despite a win-loss record maligned by an onslaught of injury this season (more than 150 man-games lost), this year’s top-to-bottom roster was the best the club has ever had. That is, until the madness of Saturday night.
Like Robert Downey Jr.’s surprise Comic-Con reveal last summer that he would be returning to the MCU, this time not as an Avenger but as the franchise’s next big bad, Dr. Doom, Nico Harrison’s instantaneous turn from hero to villain was sudden and confounding.
To his credit, Harrison acknowledges that time will tell if the boldest move in basketball history was, as he sees it, the best move for the franchise. Davis, closing in on 32, is still a Top 10 player in the NBA, and if you could imagine a world where Luka never existed, the current roster (when healthy) is still probably overall better than any to ever see the court in Dallas. Championship runs (at least for the next couple of years) are not out of the question, though now to get there, you’d have to make it past a Lakers team now armed with a stone-cold Luka Dončić motivated by revenge. But even if Harrison’s gamble pays off with championship glory, to a large contingent of fans, it just won’t feel the same. There will always be an asterisk next to the ledger, and the specter of “What if?” will follow any success (or failures) the team has for the next decade.
Aside from Harrison himself, this trade perhaps pleased only one other person, and that’s Jerry Jones, who could probably do anything shy of selling the Cowboys to Mohammad bin Salman and moving them to Saudi Arabia and face less blowback than Harrison will see for the foreseeable future. Harrison is now, and might forever be, Public Enemy No. 1.
