Mike Curtis: Nico Harrison said he was not told by #Mavs governor Patrick Dumont that he had to trade Luka Doncic:
"Not at all. Patrick reminds me of the leadership that I had at Nike and a really good leader doesn't tell the people that work for him what to do. It's a collective, well thought out process to make a big move like that. Also, unfortunately, I'm super stubborn so someone telling me to do something doesn't work too well for me."
Can we end the new owner forcing Nico to trade Luka now?
Nico was driving the ship. He wanted to trade Luka. He chose who he wanted to trade Luka for (AD). He directed the whole thing.
The new ownership just signed off on his plan.
Indeed. As a neutral you view it from the side "Why didn't Harrison test the market for Doncic, besides the Lakers, when he decided he was willing to trade Doncic?". But it's clear by now that the main part wasn't Doncic, but the fact that Harrison bellieved they needed an improvement in defense to be able to win a championship. Thus he fount the only two-way (top 10 player in the league) all star who available for trade was Davis. So the question was just "What package will the Lakers accept to trade Davis?". And from that standpoint I guess the Lakers would have never accepted anything other than Doncic (they wouldn't have settled for Irving, Gafford, Lively or Washington).
Still just as stupid, but it makes some sense why Harrison didn't float Doncic around for a better value deal, because no team would have traded a better two-way player (at least not in Harrison's mind). Would the Celtics have traded Tatum? Would the Bucks have traded Antetokounmpo? Would OKC have traded SGA? Would the Wolves have traded Edwards?
I think this is a very good post, but I think it's worth re-emphasising just how stupid this very sound, very logical deduction into his thought process makes Harrison look, even when you're trying to understand his motives.
Ironically, turns out if he waited a couple of months, he probably could very easily trade for Giannis right now.
And also consider #6 Minnesota, 1 game removed from both #3 and #8. If Doncic is still in Dallas, AD still in LA, there several different scenarios where Minnesota possibly loses in the 1st round (because Lakers have AD, or because they're facing OKC, HOU, LAC, GSW, DEN), then an Ant trade could be very possible too.
Did Nico really think getting AD in February would make the Mavs championship contenders this year?
So not only did Nico not shop Luka, but he probably would have gotten a much better return if he just waited a couple of months.
