NEWS: Donnie out | Nico Harrison (Nike) as Pres/GM | Fin as VP | Dirk as Advisor

[HanspardsShowerVoice]

I find it really hard to believe Voulgaris is some kind of irreplaceable super-genius. Seems more like he's just Mark's buddy with a similarly abrasive personality.

The Mavs need a GM who will be respected, who has relationships with agents and GMs around the league and won't just be viewed as a weak puppet. On the analytics side he just needs to be willing to listen to the numbers nerds, but we don't need to pretend a single gambling douche is a priceless resource.

I find it hard to believe Finley would have any more respect than Donnie did, and honestly I suspect that rumor is coming from the Donnie people who are still in the F.O.

Ultimately I look at the Heat organization as the ideal organizational set up.  They have a very robust analytics department, which is headed by Shane Battier.    I doubt Battier is in the basement writing Python script to build predictive machine learning models, but he has a lot of clout in the game and he's able to take his department's information and bring it to the table when decisions have to be made and make sure their voice is heard.      You have Spoelstra in charge of Xs and Os and on the court strategy.  Alonzo Mourning VP of Player Programs, who acts as the intermediary between the players and the front office and establishes organization culture.  Andy Elsburg as the General Manager, who has been there 32 years, who coordinates all the departments.   Then ultimately Riley as the "CEO" of the organization ... ultimate overseer and decision maker who sells the organization and the vision to players.   Everyone has their assigned lane, and they have the one head honcho at the top who makes sure it stays that way.    

Now compared to the Mavs mess of an organization where no one knows what the "GM" was really ultimately in charge of.  The analytics guy, a former professional gambler and twitter troll, is traveling with the team and in the lockerroom interacting directly with players and pissing off the star player.  The owner is making trades for guys like Rondo who the head coach doesn't want to coach and doesn't really seem to feel obligated to make it work.