Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison says he underestimated how deeply fans felt about Luka Doncic, but he still stands by the trade that sent the star to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis.
Harrison said he expected criticism after the deal. He also said he did not fully grasp how attached fans were to Doncic until the reaction grew loud and sustained.
“I did know that Luka was important to the fan base,” Harrison said Monday during his season-ending news conference. “I didn’t quite know it to what level.”
Harrison has argued the trade was meant to build a championship contender around Anthony Davis plus Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, P.J. Washington and Dereck Lively II. He believed results on the court would quiet critics.
Instead, injuries prevented that lineup from proving itself. Davis hurt his groin in his Dallas debut. Irving tore the ACL in his left knee while Davis was sidelined. The five-player combination never took the floor together for any extended stretch.
“We feel that’s a championship-caliber team and we would have been winning at a high level and that would have quieted some of the outrage,” Harrison said. “And so unfortunately we weren’t able to do that, so it just continued to go on and on.”
When Davis was out, the Mavericks nearly did not have enough available players to meet the NBA’s minimum roster requirement for several games. Once Davis returned, the team steadied and finished the regular season in the 10th spot in the Western Conference play-in.
Dallas won at Sacramento to earn a shot at the eighth seed, but then lost at Memphis and did not advance. Harrison said the club expects to find talent in the draft, where they currently hold the 11th pick, and he did not rule out moves in free agency.
On what the team needs to become a true contender again, Harrison said, “Really, we just need to get healthy. I think the team we’re bringing back is a championship-caliber. We fully expect to have Kyrie back with us next year when he gets healed from his injury. And we believe we’ll be competing for a championship.”
Last week Harrison defended the swap in a smaller session with reporters and repeatedly said “defense wins championships.” After that exchange, Doncic told ESPN he found Harrison’s comments “sad” and said he wanted to move on.
Harrison, who said he still has not spoken with the player, responded to that by saying, “I feel the same way he does. I’ve actually never spoken ill of Luka, and I’m just ready to move on with this team that we have.”
The franchise now heads into the offseason with health as the top priority. Harrison says the organization believes the core it can return to next season has championship potential if players recover and the roster is managed carefully this summer.
