The Mavs legend spoke about the firing of Nico Harrison and the Luka Doncic trade on NBA on Prime.
DALLAS — Dallas Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki spoke about the firing of former Mavs general manager Nico Harrison on NBA on Prime.
Nowitzki was asked on the show about why he thought the firing happened.
“I think there was just too many distractions, too much going on to keep going this way,” Nowitzki said. “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, but here we are now.”
While Harrison’s early tenure with the Mavs was marked by success and the Mavs reaching the NBA Finals in 2024, Harrison has faced a barrage of criticism from Mavs fans since former Mavs star Luka Doncic was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers last season.
Nowitzki said during the show that he believed the Mavs fan base wouldn’t move on if the organization continued as they had been.
“This fan base is a passionate and loyal fan base. I was lucky enough to experience it for 21 years, and I knew they weren’t just [going to] get over it as people say, or forget about it,” he said of the Luka trade. “This trade just made no sense. It made no sense to them, and really there was no explanation for it either.”
Nowitzki described the way the Luka Doncic era ended in Dallas as “heartbreaking.”
“The fans feel like they got robbed of actually seeing the end, seeing this through, seeing Luka develop into hopefully a champion one day. It feels like they never got to see the end to this. So this was very heartbreaking,” he said.
Nowitzki said he’s hopeful the franchise can make a turnaround after the front office change.
“It’s time to move on now, focus on this team, on this franchise,” he said. “This definitely set the franchise back, but now it’s about building it back up. Obviously this team is struggling a bit, it needs the support, all they can get, so hopefully we can have a good year here from now on.”