Dallas Mavericks Director General Nico Harrison made an interesting entry on Monday when he spoke to journalists about his decision to negotiate the Fans of Luka Du Lakers in February.
No, Harrison did not admit that this decision was a mistake. On the contrary, he firmly clung to his “Defense victory championships” of the agreement which sent Doncic to Los Angeles and brought elite defender Anthony Davis to Dallas.
But after more than two months of Mavericks fans calling for his dismissal – in a very noisy and visible way – Harrison admitted that he had underestimated the level of indignation that the trade would cause.
“I knew that Luka was important for the fans base,” said Harrison, a former longtime executive in Nike whose fourth season with the Mavericks ended on Friday with a game defeat against the Memphis grizzles. “I didn’t know what level.”
Dononic, 26, got attached to the dallas fans base in six seasons and more with the organization, making the stars match five times and leading the mavericks to the NBA 2024 final. If Harrison did not achieve the level of fans worship for the Slovenian superstar before trade, he certainly does it.
“When you have 20,000 people in the stadium singing” Fire Nico “, you really feel it,” said Harrison. “I mean that it is – I use the word” brilliant “, but not positively. As, you can really feel what they feel. …
“But my work is to make decisions that I think I am in the best interest of this organization, and I have to make the decisions, and some of them will be unpopular. It was clearly one that is unpopular.”
Harrison said he was still thinking that fans would have taken more kind to exchange a player as well if he had seen his “vision” of the organization and a departure from Davis, Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, PJ Washington and Dereck Lively II.
Instead, an injury attack prevented these five from taking the ground together.
“Really, the way we watched it was, if you put a team on the ground that is Kyrie, Klay, PJ, Anthony Davis and Lively, we think it is a team of championship caliber and we would have won at a high level and that would have calmed part of the outrage,” said Harrison. “And therefore unfortunately, we were unable to do so, therefore (indignation) continued to continue again and again.”
Harrison added that he expects the team’s heart to return next season and “participate in a championship”.
“I believe that winning will help repair the relationship with fans and that’s what we plan to do,” he said.
Harrison spoke at a press conference which took place six days after him and CEO Rick Welts held a round table in camera with a small limited group of media members. These journalists were not allowed to bring cameras and initially it was said that they could not bring audio recording devices either, although they ended up being authorized to record the meeting for transcription purposes only.
The goal of the round table was to close the situation of Doncic, but Harrison recognized on Monday which did not happen.
“The objective was that I answered all the questions (Donic), (therefore) today, I could talk about the team as it is currently, then what we do in the future,” said Harrison. “But because it fell flat, today I answer essentially to the same questions I answered last week because we did not do a job well enough.”
During the round table event, Harrison repeatedly fell back on the Mantra “Defense Win Championships” as an explanation for Trading Doncic. During an interview with Malika Andrews of ESPN which was broadcast on Friday, Doncic was asked about Harrison’s comments.
“It’s just sad about the way he is talking about right now,” said Donic. “I never say anything wrong about it, and I just want to continue. Fans, my ex-teams, I will always keep in the heart. It’s time for me to go from there.”
Said Donon’s commentary, Harrison said: “I feel the same as him. I have never talked about Luka at all, and I’m just ready to move on to what we have.”
For Harrison and the Mavericks, the opportunity to move on to something else will not come before next season. Donic, on the other hand, is fortunate to take another step in the process while the Lakers welcome the Timberwolves of Minnesota Tuesday evening with the chance to link their series of playoffs in the first round during a victory each.
Los Angeles fans seem to know how important is it to happen.
