Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[mvossman]

Let me put it another way:

AD and Kyrie are here because of Harrison. He likes them and they like him. He's here at least as long as those guys are.

He drafted Cooper Flagg, and you can bet your bottom dollar he's doing everything he can to make sure their relationship is more effective than what he had with Luka, so I'm not sure Harrison's support from the locker room ends with the AD/Kyrie tenures, honestly.

But the biggest thing is this: nobody cares what Cuban thinks anymore, and the new owners, including the guy acting as Governor, are very, very, VERY clearly focused on extending their web of influence into the Dallas political scene so that they can rearrange the real estate in their favor. They're 100X more focused on this new war with the Dallas Stars than they are with anything having to do with the Mavericks' on court play. What this means to me is this: I could be wrong, but I honestly don't think there even IS someone with a voice on the basketball side to whom it would even occur to fire Nico Harrison. I think he literally IS the basketball side of the organization. That's just the way it is until something forces change, and the only "something" I can think of that would force change is people not buying tickets. Does anyone think that's likely to happen, if it hasn't to start this season?

I just do not understand getting hung up on this stuff. We always have a choice as human beings, but in this case the choice is simply to care about the Mavericks, given the circumstances we can't control, or to NOT care about the Mavericks. That's it - there's no other choice. No judgement hurled at anyone who stops following the team and (by extension) stops posting here. We've lost several great, great posters since the Luka trade, and while I miss them, I respect their ability to control their free time - it's admirable, really. The people who very clearly HATE the Mavericks and will not stop coming by here to defecate in the freshly made punch are draining my will to live. I wish they'd get a life already.

I think part of what is happening is that a lot of folks got super upset with the TDL moves and bitched on this board (and others) for months as a kind of cathartic exercise.  I think a lot of those folks would have been done with the Mavs or this board or both after last season.  But then the miracle struck, and a lot of folks with no hope got sucked back in.  But in the small sample of season so far, it has become clear to those folks that Flagg is not going to single handedly turn a franchise around in a year or two like Luka did, we can't see any part of the vision because many of the main parts are frustratingly injured again, and meanwhile the guys that got traded away are putting up big numbers.  I think the Flagg tease brought some folks back in, but the beginning to this season is reopening all of the old wounds from last season.

I really hope you are wrong about ownership and Nico.