DALLAS – Dallas Mavericks fans chanted it for months. On Tuesday, they finally got their wish.
Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison was fired Tuesday during a meeting with team owner Patrick Dumont, according to ESPN NBA insiders Shams Charania and Tim MacMahon.
Charania reported that the meeting was being held at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, longtime NBA insider Marc Stein reported that Harrison’s firing was imminent and could happen as soon as Tuesday. WFAA has reached out to the Mavericks for confirmation of the reports of Harrison’s firing.
BREAKING: The Dallas Mavericks and owner Patrick Dumont are expected to fire general manager Nico Harrison at a 10 am central time meeting on Tuesday, sources tell me and Tim MacMahon. pic.twitter.com/8ipXrhmvR9
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 11, 2025
Harrison was hired by the Mavericks in the summer of 2021. Most of his early tenure in Dallas was considered a success, capped by the Mavericks reaching the NBA Finals in 2024. But everything changed for Harrison and the organization when he notoriously dealt beloved megastar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers last season, a heavily criticized move that was deemed by some as one of the worst trades in NBA history.
And while Harrison’s reasoning might have made sense on paper, he wanted to shift the Mavericks into a better defensive team, anchored by All-NBA big man Anthony Davis, but it flopped in reality.
Davis was injured for most of his stint with the Mavericks at the end of last season, and he was sidelined again at the start of this season, as Dallas struggled offensively and stumbled to a 3-8 start.
Despite the overwhelming vocal opposition of the fan base after the trade last season, Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont stood by Harrison, and the Mavericks’ good fortune to land the first overall pick in this summer’s draft, where they selected Cooper Flagg, gave Harrison a chance to redeem himself.
But the Mavericks’ early-season struggles, especially on offense, reinvigorated the vitriol against Harrison. Over the weekend, reports from ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Marc Stein – two of the most well-connected and veteran reporters covering the Mavericks – suggested the pressure on Harrison was being turned up.
MacMahon went as far as to say on The Hoop Collective podcast that it was a matter of when, not if, Harrison would be fired, as his relationship with Dumont had “completely disintegrated.”
Harrison stood by his trade of Doncic, even amid all the criticism this past spring.
“There’s no regrets on the trade,” Harrison told a small collection of reporters in a closed-door, invite-only media session in April. “Part of my job is to do the best thing for the Mavericks, not only today but also in the future, and some of the decisions I’m going to make are going to be unpopular, and that’s my job. I have to stand by it.”
At the same media session, Harrison was asked about the constant peppering of “Fire Nico” chants at the American Airlines Center after the Doncic trade. In response, Harrison said “the beauty of Dallas” is the passionate fan base and that every trade he’s made has not been regarded as a good trade. Still, their philosophy going forward is a team built on defense, Harrison said.
Harrison said history would decide if the trade was a good one and reiterated that he believed the core of Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, P.J. Washington and Dereck Lively II is a championship-caliber team.
“Although [the fans] could have been upset with trading Luka, they wouldn’t have been upset with the results,” Harrison said in April. “And I do believe that once we win, the fans will come back.”
Dallas is now closing the book on the most polarizing front-office gamble in franchise history — one Harrison still insists needed no apology.
I hope Nico goes back to selling shoes and never touches a pro franchise again! Dallas can start to heal now that he’s gone! Worst trade in NBA history and very debatably in all of sports history. Hate him. Luka was the heart and soul of the Dallas Mavericks! He got done dirty and so did the fans!