2025-26 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

yeah, it's just a really s***ty situation over there right now. they need a new gm to just clean house around flagg (and lively if they think he can ever stay on the floor). i wonder if this isn't the right place for ujiri to make his comeback?

yeah, i definitely thought trading AD for luka was something we were hoping for. i just thought it would be with luka wanting out and us probably having to give up reaves and everything not nailed down in addition to AD. but tbh, i was actually really wrong about it, as the thing it required was luka wanting out, which he said he was never intending to do!

whatever, take the w, i guess.

 

Not getting Reaves is the icing on the cake. Reaves ain't Luka but he's an all-star level offensive player at very least. A guy who fans loves and somebody who can actualy playmake You can imagine a world where AD doesn't get hurt and you have AD, Reaves, Flagg, Max with Irving coming back from injury as a lot more palatable.

 

we are not ingrates.

 

We are Devo. Oh wait.

 

Nico Harrison replacements: From Dirk Nowitzki to Rich Paul, here are 5 candidates for the Mavericks' GM job

Tom Haberstroh, Contributing writer
Tue, November 11, 2025 at 10:11 AM PST
7 min read
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Nine months too late. As soon as Dallas Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont heard that Nico Harrison wanted to trade Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers … for Anthony Davis and Max Christie … and just one first-round pick … that’s it. That’s when it should have been over.

Instead, the team decided to wait nine months to make the decision that just about everyone in the fan base was clamoring for. On Tuesday, the Mavs finally parted ways with infamous general manager Nico Harrison after fallout from the Dončić trade had become too much to bear. The Mavs went 16-28 after trading Dončić, as Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis have barely played together. Even lucking into the No. 1 overall pick to select Cooper Flagg couldn’t save Harrison his job. If anything, it accelerated the timeline for his successor.

For any free-agent executive looking at Dallas, Flagg is the primary reason you take the job. The 18-year-old is a generational talent who on Monday night broke out of an early slump and put up 26 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists in a close loss against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks.

So now what? Here are five candidates to replace Nico Harrison and bring light to the darkest chapter in Mavericks franchise history.

The Credibility Play: Bob Myers
The former Golden State Warriors president of basketball operations and general manager recently left his TV job at ESPN to work full-time for Josh Harris’ ownership group in Philadelphia. A four-time champion with the Warriors, Myers hasn’t ruled out a return to the throne of running a basketball team and has been patient about his opportunities ever since he left the Warriors in May 2023. Top jobs in New Orleans, Washington, Phoenix, Sacramento and Atlanta have come and gone without Myers taking the plunge.


Bob Myers could bring some credibility back to the Mavs organization. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)
None of those teams can flaunt a transformational talent like Cooper Flagg. But that’s not the only reason Dallas could be the job Myers has been waiting for. A key reason why: Rick Welts. The current CEO of the Dallas Mavericks was Myers’ front-office colleague in Golden State while they were raising Larry O’Brien trophies. In June 2019, when Warriors owner Joe Lacob announced extensions for Welts and Myers, he told fans, “We feel Rick and Bob are two of the best leaders in professional sports and, quite honestly, in any line of business.”

If Dumont wants to win back credibility, it’s hard to imagine a more decorated tandem than Welts and Myers running the program.

The Brotherhood Play: Grant Hill
The Hill and Flagg bonds go deep — Duke deep. Duke hoopers collectively refer to themselves as The Brotherhood, which may get eye rolls in Chapel Hill, but you can’t argue it hasn’t been a winning formula. As an executive, Hill has ascended to the top of the sport as the head of Team USA basketball. In that position, he boldly tabbed a 17-year-old Flagg to join the 2024 Paris team on a Las Vegas Select team.

[Get more Mavs news: Dallas team feed]

One key detail that folks might not know about Hill: He was born in Dallas. Hill’s father, Calvin, played six years for the Dallas Cowboys and was a four-time Pro Bowler while Grant was in diapers. The Dallas ties, Flagg connection and vast USA Basketball network could make Grant a strong fit to lead the franchise in the post-Nico era. Hill would likely require an overwhelming offer if he was ever to leave his role as a part-owner and vice chairman of the Atlanta Hawks. Indicative of the vast Rolodex of Hill’s, he played for Phoenix while Welts was in the front office for the Suns. Could they reunite in Hill’s birthplace?

The Nostalgia Play: Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash
The NBA’s new TV partner, Amazon Prime, might not love this one, but hey, if JJ Redick can leave his marquee TV gig early, why not Dirk and Nash? To be honest, I did not have on my bingo card that LeBron James’ podcast, Mind the Game, would become a pipeline for top NBA jobs, but alas, the name of LeBron’s co-host, Nash, will pop up anywhere there is demand for a top basketball, um, mind.


Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash would reenergize the Mavs fan base. (Photo by Tim Heitman/Getty Images)
Nash is currently in an advisory role with Suns ownership, which could complicate matters on the team side, but from where I sit, it’s not enough to dissuade him from getting into the Flagg business, especially with Nash once being a two-time All-Star in Dallas. As for Nowitzki, he opened up and said the Dončić trade “really hurt,” but that he would always be a Mavs fan. Would a president-of-basketball-operations gig help soothe those wounds? Bringing Dirk back into the fold officially, promoting assistant GM Michael Finley (who along with Matt Riccardi will replace Harrison in the interim) into a GM role and installing Nash as a head coach or front office member might be just the thing to make Mavs fans completely forget the Nico era. OK, maybe not completely.

The Outside Hire: David Griffin
Yes, believe it or not, there’s another Welts connection on this one. That’s why you hire Welts in the first place. Griffin and Welts worked together in Phoenix while Griffin worked his way up the ladder in the Seven Seconds Or Less era. Griffin joins the aforementioned Myers with the distinguished accomplishment of being a former championship top decision-maker who has also worked with Welts in a previous organization.

After his time in Cleveland rebuilding the Cavs following LeBron James’ departure, Griffin knows a thing or two about rebuilding a tarnished image of an organization and eventually assembling a championship roster. Shortly after Griffin and James led the 2016 championship squad, Griffin left to run the show in New Orleans for six years, which wasn’t nearly as successful as his previous stint. Griffin was let go in April, but if Welts came calling, would his free agency last much longer?


The Bombshell Play: Rich Paul
Hear me out on this one. What do Myers and Paul have in common? They both ascended to the top of their industry as player agents. Myers left mega agency Wasserman in 2011 to work in the Warriors front office and became one of the most influential executives in the sport. Could Paul follow in his footsteps?

Crazier things have happened. Anthony Davis is one of Paul’s top clients and any hopes of one day running the L.A. Lakers seemingly evaporated when Pelinka brought Luka Dončić and his super agent, Bill Duffy, into the inner-circle of LakerLand. Paul also represents Dereck Lively II in addition to Davis, giving him a close perspective of the goings-on in Dallas during the Nico era and a handy roadmap of what-not-to-do with the ownership group.

If Paul feels a certain way about how the Luka-Davis trade went down, he could have a chip on his shoulder and work for the other team. If Paul has aspirations of joining LeBron James in his dream of owning a Las Vegas franchise, he might not want to invest his time and energy running the Mavs. But then again, what better way to learn about Vegas and the casino industry than learning from Dumont and the Adelsons, the famous owners of the Las Vegas Sands company?

 

can't see any way he lands another GM gig. he's basically a pariah leaguewide after the luka trade. maybe he could land some sort of behind the scenes advisor role, but any team hiring him would get endless s*** for hiring "the guy who traded luka"

the biggest travesty of the luka trade is that the mavs didn't get more in return. the mavs could've asked the lakers for reaves and more 1st rounders, and the lakers still make that deal 10/10 times

 

^^^ Give Pelinka credit here. Am "betting" he channeled a poker player's bluff from ole Doc Buss and with Jeanie that that would be a deal breaker to have to include AR. No doubt Nico had to ask.

 

yeah, and part of why i feel sort of icky about that is that this may be an actual instance of rob being a snake...it just happened to benefit the folks that hate him the most, so admitting it is a double-edged sword for everyone.

like...are rob and nico still friends? can they be? if you're nico, you've got be thinking you got the short end of the stick in the relationship in many ways.

when the trade was first made, my thought was that nico was polishing up his resume for a non-basketball job (i.e., he did a thing that was disruptive but more successful than folks imagined, coming as a quasi-outsider to the industry). but exiting when you're literally on the bottom can't accomplish that.

anyway, just having trouble processing the whole sequence of events...why not let kidd walk? why extend him if you're firing nico?

 

because the people in charge have no idea what the hell they're doing

they need to trade everyone not named cooper flagg and start from scratch

 

Well come on if it was a bluff AR was a deal breaker that is Rob putting his job and the Lakers over a friendship with Nico. “Snake” undeserved in that case IMO. Maybe / likely he knew the Lakers weren’t Nico’s first stop.

 

I don’t care what anyone says. Nico Harrison is a hero in my household!

 

Oh I think Rob definitely took advantage. As a frequent critic of him and the front office I give them some leeway because from everything I gather Nico was the driving force behind the move. He called us. So even though I think Rob totally fleeced him how mad can I be at him for doing what pretty much any exec would do?

Gotta think the friendship is toast though.

Some NSFW language in the below video…

 

He wasn't a good GM. He's not the only one who was an idiot with the Luka situation, but he was always going to be the first one out cause of it.

Some highlights:
-wasted a 1st on CWood
-promised McGee a large role (and I love McGee), but you make him earn that
-Gave Grant Williams $53m and he was HATED
-Gave up 3 2nd rounders to get Grimes, THEN moved another 2nd to trade him for Caleb Martin
-Brunson bolts
-Got nothing for Porzingis
-OMP was a dud
-Picked and traded Wendell Moore over Nembhard, Jovic, and Max

Needs to go back to shoes and merch. NBA management ain't for him.

 

Dallas to truly move on needs stretch waive AD so he can come back to the Lakers. Best way to setup the tank for this year as they got no FRP for like 5 years now is truly go balls out to get into the gutter - need to compete with the Nets after all.

 

i can buy Rob being a snake but what the hell is he supposed to do in this situation? Nico is the one calling him and Rob did his job as GM of the freakin Lakers. I'm sorry this goes back to Nico - you as the Dallas GM is to due your due diligence. If you take away past friendship and Nico calls up Rob same situation, Rob would still do the exact same thing.

 

Guys think we’re tough on front office now. Imagine the backlash if it came out that Rob passed on a Luka trade…

 

^^^ … over not wanting to lose AR. Yikes! That why he did so great, as GM for the Lakers best interests. Keeping Reaves was the chef’s kiss. Look at Luka and AR together now.

 

no we’re good.