The Dallas Mavericks are a franchise in turmoil after firing general manager Nico Harrison as the team failed to live up to his vision following the disastrous trade sending Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers.
With Harrison gone, the Mavs desperately need to create a new vision for the team that they can sell to fans, and the obvious way to do so is to shift the focus to the future and build around No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg. To do so, they will need to unload high-priced veterans, most notably the centerpiece of the return for Dončić, Anthony Davis.
Ever since Harrison was fired, the expectation has been that Davis’ days in Dallas are numbered, and on Wednesday we got our first strongly reported confirmation of that from ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. MacMahon cites multiple team sources who said the team will “explore the trade market” for Davis ahead of the February deadline.
However, minority owner Mark Cuban (once the team’s majority owner) told The Athletic that the Mavs would not be trading Davis, saying simply, “We won’t. We want to try to win.”
That call won’t be Cuban’s to make alone, as he does not have final say in personnel decisions anymore but does have considerably more input now than he did under Harrison’s front office — as evidenced by him being blindsided by the Dončić trade like everyone else. Cuban is now serving as an adviser to majority owner Patrick Dumont as part of a committee that is leading the Mavericks’ basketball operations division after Harrison’s ouster.
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Sam Quinn
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