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Mavericks Fire GM Nico Harrison Nine Months After Luka Dončić Trade

Harrison helped orchestrate the bombshell deal.

Brigid Kennedy

Harrison was the villain of the much-derided and bombshell Luka Doncic trade at the deadline last season.
Harrison was the villain of the much-derided and bombshell Luka Doncic trade at the deadline last season. / Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
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Nico Harrison is out in Dallas.

The Mavericks and owner Patrick Dumont fired the team's general manager on Tuesday morning, bringing an end to a tenure that started strong but ended with an influx of fan ire and discontent. ESPN's Shams Charania and Tim MacMahon preempted the official news with a report not long before.

Harrison's dismissal arrives almost a year after he helped orchestrate the bombshell trade that sent franchise cornerstone Luka Dončić to the Lakers, a much-derided move that has maligned fans toward the team and its GM in the months since.

On Monday, in fact, "Fire Nico" chants echoed throughout the American Airlines Center as Dallas lost to the Bucks to fall to 3–8 on the season. According to Charania, Dumont, the team's owner, "took accountability" for the Dončić trade and accepted it as a mistake when speaking courtside to a fan that same night.

Harrison was hired as GM in 2021. During his tenure, the Mavs made a Western Conference Finals appearance in 2021-22 and an NBA Finals appearance in 2023-24, after which the GM signed a multi-year extension. Following the decision to trade away Doncic at the deadline in 2024-25, a move reportedly the result of Doncic's health and presumed uninterest in signing an extension, the Mavericks' season took a turn for the worse. Things were looking up when the team drafted generational talent Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick of the 2025 draft, but clearly, that was still not enough to save Harrison's job.

“This decision reflects our continued commitment to building a championship-caliber organization, one that delivers for our players, our partners, and most importantly, our fans,” Dumont said in a statement on Tuesday.

With Harrison out, Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi will serve as co-interim general managers for the time being.

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Brigid Kennedy
BRIGID KENNEDY

Brigid Kennedy is a contributor to the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in November 2024, she covered political news, sporting news and culture at TheWeek.com before moving to Livingetc, an interior design magazine. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, dual majoring in television, radio and film (from the Newhouse School of Public Communications) and marketing managment (from the Whitman School of Management). Offline, she enjoys going to the movies, reading and watching the Steelers.

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