The Dallas Mavericks rightfully handed general manager Nico Harrison his marching orders last week, citing their 'continued commitment to building a championship-calibre organisation, one that delivers for our players, our partners, and most importantly, our fans'.
The news presented Dallas legend Dirk Nowitzki with the opportunity to have himself a signature broadcasting moment, just weeks into a young punditry career. The German did not miss.
"This move should have happened this summer, honestly," he said, as part of a sprawling takedown of Harrison's time at the helm of his beloved ball club.
Harrison's firing prohibits him from worsening an already abysmal legacy as chief decision maker in Dallas, after he single-handedly orchestrated one of the worst trades in sports history, in sending franchise cornerstone Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Luka's resume in 6-and-a-half completed seasons as a Maverick was exceptional. Rookie of the Year. Five All-NBA First Team nods, and the first ever to achieve such a feat through age 24. He leads the franchise in career triple-doubles, points in a game (73), and points in a given season (2370).
In return, the trade netted the Mavericks the battered, reliably unreliable frame of big man Anthony Davis, unremarkable two-guard Max Christie, and one (yes, just one), future first-round draft pick, in devastating contrast to the haul of five first rounders and two first-round pick swaps secured by Oklahoma City for Paul George in 2019.
In a bewildering turn of events, the Mavericks would land the first overall draft selection at the draft, after having lottery odds of just 1.8%. Predictably, Dallas secured the services of collegiate standout Cooper Flagg with this selection.
Harrison then showed he boasts a gall of comparable size to his incompetence, stating that he hoped fans would now see his 'vision', as if he had any way of knowing the cards would fall his way despite such measly odds.
That wasn't the only comment Harrison made that dimmed the afterglow of Flagg's drafting, with the 52-year-old choosing to wheel out the old adage that 'fortune favours the bold'. Tell that to the torn ACL of sidelined star Kyrie Irving, and any number of perennially injured body parts belonging to Anthony Davis.
The former Nike executive bizarrely labelled the trade a 'win-now' move, mere months after Doncic led the Mavericks to an NBA Finals appearance, becoming just the second player in league history to lead a given postseason in points, assists and rebounds.
It was not a 'win-now' move. It was not a 'win-ever' move. That much has quickly become obvious.
Before a 2OT victory over a similarly placed Portland Trailblazers, the Mavs were 3-10 to start the year, floundering in the Western Conference's basement. The roster constructed for coach Jason Kidd, by the daft Harrison, lacks any genuine levers that may change the side's fortunes in real time on the court or into the future.
After the next draft, the Mavericks will not own any of their first round draft picks until 2031. Admittedly, the next draft is a handy one in which to own your own first rounder, especially given where the Mavericks are projected to finish. AJ Dybantsa and Cameron Boozer, forwards for BYU and Duke respectively, join Kansas guard Darryn Peterson in the consensus top three in this draft, but fortunately, that is not where the trajectory-altering talent ends in this class.
It remains to be seen how much authority is truly granted interim GMs Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi to change the complexion of this roster as the trade deadline approaches, or if either or both of these gentlemen will be there to make what will be the last first round draft selection the Mavs will have this decade, as it currently stands.
Rumours persist that Davis is firmly on the trade table, but as has almost exclusively been the case with the prized two-way big, his value hinges on his health.
Per ESPN, Davis is in the first year of a three-year, $175 million extension he signed in August 2023. He will turn 33 in March, and is eligible to sign a four-year, $275 million extension in the coming August, the last year of which would net him a cool $76 million, at the ripe old age of 37.
That paints a daunting picture for any executives tempted to lure the Kentucky product to their ball club. At the very least, it is an expensive prayer. No team can afford to have so much of their salary cap tied to an ageing player in a combative position, who is as likely as he is not to spend large portions of his tenure in street clothes, cheering from the end of the bench.
Finley and Riccardi will be banking on a compelling stretch of games in which Davis is both healthy and productive. Such a circumstance may inspire confidence in rival front offices that their forward and his subsequent remuneration make for a savvy investment.
Should that stretch occur, chances are still infinitesimally minuscule that the Mavericks will yield anything close to what they parted with to secure Davis' services in the first place. Still, some perimeter playmaking is desperately needed to kickstart what's been a sputtering, 29th-ranked offence. Failing to maximise the skillset of the generational combo forward you just drafted by playing him as a primary ball-handler in his rookie season would ordinarily be viewed as malpractice. In Dallas, it's necessary.
Sure, a return to health for Irving would also go some way to addressing these offensive inadequacies, but Dallas' scoring profile is so poor that the gap is far too large to reasonably expect a veteran overcoming a significant knee injury to bridge it himself.
The potential departure of Davis presents as an opportunity to re-balance this roster in aid of addressing this need, even if not in the form of established players. Draft capital would suffice.
Chances are the Mavs will opt to gut much of this roster as it's currently constructed. The Mavs are a tough watch with these players, and departures will see them somehow regress further.
In a regular set of circumstances, adding back-to-back lottery picks to a team boasting players with the resumes of Davis and Irving would shape a team as a contender, but that romanticism ignores the glaring and expensive cap issues the Mavericks are facing.
Yet again, Dallas is a luxury tax team, and will pay for this (pun not intended). Repeat offences mean the franchise is projected to pay the largest tax penalty in their history, at $142 million.
If they don't magically start winning games, and as predicted, finish in the lottery for a second consecutive season, ownership will be on the hook for $370 million in salaries and tax. It's hard to fathom ownership would pony up that cash for a team years away from even sniffing a championship window, let alone opening one.
As such, expect players to move, enabling the franchise to avoid the second apron, and the strict penalties that come with it. They are sitting less than $5 million under that threshold right now. For context, the top four players in the most recent draft made $10 million or more in their first season, so signing another lottery pick would send them over the second apron threshold, unless they dump salary elsewhere.
All of this occurring in front of a backdrop of a historically brilliant start to the season for Luka Doncic in the purple and gold, compounds the brutal mismanagement that Mavericks' fans found themselves at the mercy of.
"He was supposed to have a statue."
