It’s possible that history will not remember Patrick Dumont as anything other than as the guy who married billionaire Miriam Adelson’s daughter. The Dallas Mavericks’ governor did what sports fans typically want out of their owners: he stayed out the way and trusted his executives to make the best decision for his team. Unfortunately for Dumont, he trusted the stupidest man in sports, and the blood of the Luka Doncic trade will remain on his hands for those in the know for as long as his family owns the team.
For everyone else, trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers will always be Nico Harrison’s fault. Harrison’s incredibly bold bet went bust immediately, and now he’s out of a job with a legacy that will never be fogotten.
The Mavericks fired Harrison on Tuesday after a 3-8 start to the season. Doncic is averaging nearly 40 points per game for the Lakers to begin his first full year with the team, while the centerpiece of Dallas’ return in the trade, Anthony Davis, entered the season 20+ pounds overweight and immediately got injured. Add in Kyrie Irving’s torn ACL at the end of last season, and Dallas somehow completely ruined an NBA Finals team with one terrible trade that will be remembered forever.
Here’s Dumont’s letter to Mavs fans announcing the decision to fire Harrison:
The next Mavs GM has a huge mess to clean up. Dallas has one of the best young centerpieces in the NBA in Cooper Flagg after it somehow cashed in on a 1.8 percent chance to win the 2025 NBA Draft lottery months after the Doncic trade. Flagg is arguably just as valuable of a long-term term asset as Doncic, but the Mavericks’ future draft pick stash is already depleted for trying to build around Luka. Dallas doesn’t control its first round draft pick in 2027, 2028, 2029, or 2030.
The Mavs are about to tank hard, trade Anthony Davis, and auction off their other veterans like Daniel Gafford, Klay Thompson, and P.J. Washington. Flagg is the youngest player in the NBA this season and doesn’t turn 19 years old until next month, but the clock is already ticking on saving the next “generational talent” to land in Dallas.
Why did the Mavericks trade Luka Doncic?
The Mavericks traded Luka Doncic eight months after leading the team to the 2024 NBA Finals because lead executive Nico Harrison thought he was overweight, uncommitted to professional habits off the court, and a poor defender. There was of course some truth to Harrison’s allegations, but that doesn’t mean you trade a 25-year-old superstar with five First-Team All-NBA selections already to his name for pennies on the dollar.
Harrison said “defense wins championships” while defending his decision to trade Doncic for Anthony Davis. In doing so, he shortened the Mavericks’ contention window around a much older and much more injury-prone player. Dallas’ defense has been very good to begin the 2025-26 season, but their offense is among the worst in the league, and the team has been terrible. Defense *can* win championships, but great offense usually beats great defense when it matters most in the NBA.
Even if Harrison’s concerns about Doncic had some validity, they were always correctable problems. The trade motivated Doncic to show up in the best shape of his life when the Lakers began this season thanks to a newly committed diet and training regime. Luka fixed his problems, but Dallas never had any chance to recreate what made him special.
Without Doncic, role players like Washington, Gafford, and Dereck Lively II struggled to find the same success. Davis was a top-10 player in the league at the time of the trade, but he’s a completely different player, and he did not make his teammates better the way Luka did.
The Doncic trade was always a disaster, and my initial D+ grade for Dallas was far too kind. The worst case scenario has played out for the Mavericks since: Davis and Irving both got injured, Davis became overweight, and the team crumbled. Winning the lottery for Flagg was the best case scenario for Dallas, but they’re going to need another round of lottery luck for the 2026 draft if they have any hope of building a good team around him any time soon.
Nico Harrison’s delusion is legendary
As the Mavs introduced Flagg following the draft, Harrison gave one of the most delusional quotes in NBA history. He said fans would now “finally start to see the vision.”
Harrison’s vision of the Mavs as a defensive force immediately went bust once Davis and Irving got hurt. Landing Flagg was pure luck at best, while many fans will claim it was a conspiracy to pacify Mavs fans after their post-trade revolt. Either way, Harrison did not think he was going to land Flagg when he made the Luka trade, and the fact that he suggested as much is truly wild behavior.
Dumont had the authority to block the Doncic trade and fire Nico on the spot for suggesting it. That’s what he should have done, but instead Dumont — who was stunned that fans were booing him after the trade — trusted his basketball guy.
The Doncic trade will be remembered as basketball’s version of the Red Sox trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees. It was completely indefensible at the time and aged even worse.
Sports fans will probably be talking about the Doncic trade 100 years from now the same way the Babe Ruth trade still gets brought up. Like Ruth, Doncic was 25 years old at the time of the trade. Time will tell if the Lakers can win a championship with Luka, but the legacy of the trade is how it devastated the Mavericks in every way possible.
Nico Harrison has been fired, but the legacy is forever. It will survive long after all of us are gone.
