The Dallas Mavericks fired general manager Nico Harrison on Tuesday in a move that just about the entire basketball world viewed as overdue. Harrison executed one of the most stunning trades in sports history when he sent Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers on Feb. 2, just eight months after Dončić led the Mavericks to an NBA Finals appearance. And Harrison made things worse with each media appearance that followed.
Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki made it clear on Friday night that he’s one of the people who think the firing was well overdue.
After saying last week that he feels bad for Mavericks fans after a “disastrous start” to the season, the NBA on Prime analyst offered eloquent commentary on the Harrison firing for over two minutes and explained why he thought it should’ve happened over the summer.
Dirk Nowitzki on the Mavs firing Nico Harrison:
“This move should have probably happened this summer, honestly. I didn’t want this negative energy and this black cloud over the Cooper Flagg era… This [Luka Dončić] trade just made no sense…” #NBA pic.twitter.com/Fg8cOPLpOU
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 15, 2025
“I think that there’s just too many distractions, too much going on to keep going this way,” Nowitzki began. “This move probably should have happened this summer, honestly. I didn’t want this negative energy and this black cloud over the Cooper Flagg era. But, here we are now.”
“I knew [the Dallas fanbase] wouldn’t just ‘get over it’ as people say, or ‘forget about it,'” Nowitzki said. “They’re extremely passionate. And this trade just made no sense. It made no sense to them, and really, there was no explanation for it either.”
“You go to the Finals the year before,” Nowitzki continued. “You gave up all these assets to build, really, the team around Luka with some 6’9″ wings that all can switch and guard for him. You had two lob threats with Gafford and Lively, and the team was built around him. You added Klay, which, the shooting was a little bit of an issue in the Finals against Boston. So, you did all this. They started the season, the following season well. Going into the Christmas Day game, they were 14-3 out of their last 17 games, so they were just starting to hit their stride. And then Luka gets hurt. And unfortunately, that’s the last game he’s ever played in a Mavs uniform. So, it was very sad. It was very sad how that ended. And the fans feel like they got robbed of actually seeing the end, seeing this through, seeing Luka develop into hopefully a champion one day.”
“So, this was very heartbreaking,” Nowitzki said in his closing thoughts. “But now, I think it’s time to move on. It’s time to move on now. Focus on this team, on this franchise. This definitely set the franchise back. But now it’s about building it back up. And obviously, this team is struggling a bit. It needs the support, all they can get. Hopefully, we can have a good year here from now on and cheer the team up.”
That’s excellent analysis that will make Mavericks fans love the 2011 NBA Finals MVP even more.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.