Dallas Mavericks GM Nico Harrison has spent the past few months following his decision to trade Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers by attempting, and failing, to justify the move publicly. But according to FS1’s Colin Cowherd, this entire situation could have been solved if Harrison had a good circle of friends.
Fans were understandably shocked when news of the trade emerged. But they weren’t the only ones thrown off by the blockbuster trade, as Dončić himself, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd, Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban, and even local Dallas reporters were given no indication that Dončić would be on the move.
This raises an obvious question. Did Harrison tell anyone about the trade before it was finalized to get any kind of second opinion?
In response to Harrison’s most recent attempt to explain the trade, Cowherd posed this exact question on The Herd, questioning whether Harrison was a “loner” without any kind of circle of friends that could have convinced him not to make the trade in the first place.
“He keeps saying we,” said Cowherd. “We, we, we. Mark Cuban didn’t know about it, and Jason Kidd didn’t get a heads-up. Who’s we? Some low-level intern scout? I mean, if Mark Cuban, a pretty smart guy, I’d lean on him, didn’t know. Jason Kidd, pretty smart guy. He didn’t know. There’s a story this morning that Jason Kidd resented not being given a heads-up. You’re either a loner, and that disqualifies you as being a GM… This is one of the things that guys can struggle with. Women are more social than we are. They talk when they go to the bathroom. Guys don’t.
“Seriously, there’s a race for the cure. Women are there for each other during medical crises. There is no race for the prostate. Guys don’t talk about medical stuff. A guy can go golfing for 6 hours. You get home, and your wife goes, ‘What’d you talk about?’ And you’re like, ‘I don’t know. The depth chart for the Chargers. Who’s quarterbacking the Bears.’ ‘How are the kids doing?’ ‘I didn’t ask him about his kids. ‘Well, how are him and Shelly doing?’ ‘Well, I didn’t ask him about his wife.’
“‘You golf for 6 hours. How did you not ask?’ ‘Well, I did. We talked about the Bears.’ That’s who we are as guys. So it’s very important that guys make an effort to be social. When I watch this Nico Harrison thing, my whole take is, Bro, don’t you have a circle of friends? Well, it was very private. Guys, marriage, company, house, you’ve always got a guy you bounce it off of. Because when that deal happened, the very first thing all of us did, you, me, and everybody, we went, That’s fake. That’s not a real trade.
“You’re going to tell me nobody in your social circle said, ‘Bro, one first-round pick, Luka Doncic? What? Come on, bro. You’ve got to get more than that.’ So the whole thing, when I hear this, we, we, we. Well, Jason Kidd didn’t know. Mark Cuban didn’t know. By the way, the media that covers the Mavericks, there wasn’t a sniff of it. So he didn’t tell many people. I don’t know who we is.”
While Cowherd is clearly being facetious while asking whether Harrison has any friends, the fact that Harrison opted to leave so many important people out of the loop while deliberating about the move does raise some serious concerns about the unity in the Mavericks front office.
Maybe Harrison was confident that the trade would be received better than it has been by Mavericks fans. Or maybe he simply didn’t care how the trade was perceived, considering he probably felt pretty good about his job security after getting a contract extension after the Mavericks’ run to the NBA Finals.
Either way, Harrison is clearly feeling the wrath of angry Mavericks fans after the team missed out on the postseason with a loss in the NBA play-in tournament to the Memphis Grizzlies, which is something that none of Harrison’s excuses can help fix.