Mavericks GM Nico Harrison on the sizzling seat? Rumblings are growing louder in Dallas — surprise why

Well, it took a nine-month span in which he traded away one of the best and most fashionable gamers in the world and presided over an NBA Finals staff plunging into the Western Conference’s cellar, but a number of reports counsel that Dallas Mavericks normal supervisor Nico Harrison’s seat might finally be getting a little toasty.

After a weekend that saw the Mavericks get drilled by the beforehand free-falling Memphis Grizzlies and eke out a win over the 1-9 Washington Wizards, the Mavericks are off to a 3-7 begin to the 2025-26 NBA season. The Wizards’ lone win this season? It came against the Mavs.

That 3-7 file is the second-worst mark in the West, forward of only the disastrous New Orleans Pelicans … who, um, beat the Mavs last week. They rank twenty ninth in the NBA in offensive effectivity, forward of only the woeful Indiana Pacers … who, um, came within a misfired wide-open Aaron Nesmith 3-pointer of beating the Mavs a week and a half in the past.

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Like those Pacers, these Mavericks are enjoying without their All-NBA level guard. Without either of them, in truth. One, Kyrie Irving, stays in road garments, recovering from a torn left ACL.

The other? Well, as you might keep in mind, Harrison traded him to Los Angeles.

That mixture of Dallas’ punchlessness, with No. 1 decide Cooper Flagg struggling to shoulder a star-level shot-creation burden, and Luka Dončić’s scorching begin, main the Lakers to a 7-3 file as the main initiator of a top-10 offense — all while Dončić commerce return/expected cornerstone Anthony Davis yet again misses time — has both the chants and the chatter surrounding Harrison’s job security getting louder and louder. As veteran NBA insider Marc Stein put it, “If Harrison’s position as the team’s lead decision-maker is not yet untenable, well, you can certainly see that status from here.”

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From Stein:

League sources inform The Stein Line that the rising and just about ceaseless negativity that surrounds the franchise is indeed carrying on and troubling possession.

While [Mavericks owner Patrick] Dumont seemingly prefers to give Harrison more time, considering whether an in-season change is the wisest course for the Mavericks to attempt to forge forward post-Dončić has become unavoidable at the highest ranges of the group […]

If Dumont finally concludes that a mid-stream change is the best course — while it is by no means clear at this juncture where the Mavericks would flip in phrases of a long-term successor — it’s believed that step would be taken not only for its vibe shift potential and as a means to attempt to win back alienated followers … but also primarily based on the premise that the entrance workplace government who conceived and pushed for the extensively criticized Dončić deal can no longer be the one making an attempt to pilot the group previous it.

Stein’s not the only plugged-in reporter in Dallas sounding the alarm. On Monday’s episode of the Brian Windhorst and the Hoop Collective podcast, ESPN’s Tim MacMahon said, “At this point, I believe it is a matter of when, not if, Nico Harrison will be fired. And there is a very, very strong likelihood that [it] will be midseason.”

Such an ouster would mark a downright astonishing pace run for Harrison — from the verge of the NBA’s promised land, as the architect of a convention champion, to doubtlessly out of the league in a yr and a half.

It’s not just the long tail of the Luka commerce with which Harrison has to contend, either.

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The choice to import Klay Thompson on a three-year, $50 million deal following the 2024 NBA Finals has not panned out. The 35-year-old is capturing 31.6% from the discipline and 26.4% from 3-point vary on the season, prompting head coach Jason Kidd to transfer the former All-Star to the bench in favor of D’Angelo Russell.

Kidd felt compelled to make the transfer not only because of Thompson’s particular person struggles, but because of how brutally inoperable the Mavericks’ offense was proving to be with Irving on the shelf and with Flagg, an 18-year-old enjoying level guard for the first time in his life, floundering on the ball in the absence of an established skilled level guard. Russell, the stopgap reply that Harrison signed in free company, is capturing just 37.5% from the discipline and 27.5% from 3-point land himself. He has scored 24 factors in 54 minutes across three video games since being moved into the beginning 5; the Mavericks have been outscored by 57 factors in those 54 minutes.

With Dallas trying for gamers succesful of both offering constant 3-point capturing and doubtlessly taking on a bigger share of the ball-handling obligations, you know who it might be good to have around? Quentin Grimes, who confirmed indicators of having more to his offensive sport late last season and has gotten off to a great begin to this one — 17.2 factors, 4.1 rebounds and 4.4 assists in 31 minutes per sport, capturing 56% on 2-pointers and 40% on 3-pointers while taking more than six per sport.

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Alas: Grimes is doing that in Philadelphia, because that’s where Harrison despatched him at the 2025 commerce deadline, in exchange for Caleb Martin — who dealt with hip accidents down the stretch of last season and has performed all of 72 minutes for the Mavericks thus far this season, with more personal fouls (13) than factors scored (12).

Harrison made that transfer in half to rebalance Dallas’ roster. Thanks to bringing in Max Christie as half of the Luka/AD commerce, Dallas out of the blue had a number of 3-and-D two-guards, and Christie was under assured contract for two more seasons while Grimes was about to hit restricted free company. (Grimes wound up signing his one-year, $8.7 million qualifying offer to keep with Philly.) Christie has performed effectively in Dallas — 13.1 factors in 29.9 minutes per sport on 50/46/81 capturing splits this season — but doesn’t profile as the sort of playmaker succesful of stepping into a more vital on-ball function for a staff in determined need of more creators.

Not the same sort of playmaker as, say, Austin Reaves — his former Lakers teammate, whom Lakers normal supervisor Rob Pelinka saved out of the Luka/AD commerce talks, and whose absence from them some pundits categorized as malpractice on Harrison’s half. Reaves completed last season as one of 10 gamers in the NBA to average at least 20 factors and 5 assists per sport on .600 true capturing; earlier this season, when Dončić was sidelined by knee and finger illnesses, Reaves averaged 40 factors and 10 assists over a three-game stretch.

[Get more Mavs news: Dallas team feed]

On one hand, Harrison is bearing the brunt of a brutal run of accidents in Dallas; there aren’t many groups that would be in notably great form when enjoying without their first-choice level guard, energy ahead and heart. (Dereck Lively II has missed seven video games with a knee damage, while Daniel Gafford missed 5 with an ankle sprain.) On the other, this was always the draw back risk of the roster that Harrison constructed.

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Building around Davis and Irving, both of whom have missed vital time to accidents in a number of seasons, put the Mavs in a precarious place should one or both decide up a knock. Devoting practically 70% of the wage cap to Davis, Irving and Thompson left the Mavs with treasured little flexibility to add complementary expertise succesful of scaling up in time of need. And by responding to the Finals loss to the Celtics by leaning so closely in the direction of measurement and protection, Harrison left the staff mild on capturing and playmaking.

Despite getting into Monday’s matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks ranked fifth in defensive effectivity, the Mavs have been one of the worst groups in the NBA. Defense might win championships, but only if you’ve got an offensive engine highly effective enough to get that protection deep into the playoffs and give it a likelihood. Without Luka or Kyrie, Harrison doesn’t have that … and, from the sound of it, that’s not the only factor he doesn’t have anymore.

“After that Luka trade, Patrick Dumont, one of his infamous quotes was, ‘In Nico we trust,’” MacMahon said. “I’m just telling you: The trust has disintegrated at this point.”

That lack of trust reared its head, according to MacMahon, in the choice over whether or not to clear Davis to return from his left calf pressure over the weekend.

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Davis, MacMahon said, had been ramping up in anticipation of enjoying Saturday in Washington. After some “internal disagreement” over whether it would be a good thought to get Davis — who has performed in only 14 of Dallas’ 43 regular-season video games since the commerce — back on the ground so rapidly, with Dumont reportedly getting concerned in the dialogue, the All-Star large man wound up lacking the win over the Wizards. He’s listed as questionable against the Bucks on Monday.

“Patrick Dumont went from blind faith in Nico to now weighing in on whether a star can come back from injury,” MacMahon said.

That invitations a follow-up query: If Dumont has reached the level of not trusting the manner Harrison’s entrance workplace navigates something like a participant’s return-to-play protocol — to say nothing of the evaluations, negotiations and decision-making that have led Dallas to sink like a stone in the standings — then why would he trust Harrison to steer the Mavericks through February’s commerce deadline? Or, for that matter, through the 2026 NBA Draft — which, thanks to the Harrison-helmed strikes that introduced in Grant Williams, Irving, P.J. Washington and Gafford, will be the last time the Mavs have full control of their first-round decide until 2031?

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After Harrison made perhaps the most consequential commerce in Mavericks franchise historical past, he defined it by saying that changing the 25-year-old Dončic with the 31-year-old Davis “matches our timeframe.”

“If you pair [Davis] with Kyrie and the relaxation of the guys, he matches proper along with our timeframe to win now and win in the future,” Harrison said. “And the future to me is three, 4 years from now. The future 10 years from now, I do not know. They’ll most likely bury me and [Kidd] by then. Or we’ll bury ourselves.”

Forget about 10 years: If issues don’t change drastically, and soon, we might be throwing filth on his Mavericks tenure inside of 10 months. The lesson: Life can come at you awfully fast in the NBA … particularly when you commerce away a prime-aged celebrity.