The Dallas Mavericks front office just got the biggest escape hatch. Monday night, with a 1.8% chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, the Mavericks jumped from having the 11th-best odds in the Draft Lottery all the way to getting the top pick with the chance to select presumed No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg in June. The Mavericks weren’t the only team to see major movement in the draft order, as the San Antonio Spurs and Philadelphia 76ers also jumped into the top three.
But none of those teams are as controversial in landing the top pick as the Mavs, because of their decision to jettison Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a future first-round pick less than four months ago. Let me be clear, the Mavericks fanbase is absolutely deserving of this moment. Having the face of the franchise ripped from the team under the cloak of night with no quality explanation other than the broken record statement of “defense wins championships” by Mavs general manager Nico Harrison is maddening. It’s a decision that made many fans rethink their loyalty to the franchise.
Those fans deserve getting the chance to root for Flagg, and hopefully this will end differently than Dončić’s tenure with the Mavericks. But the front office, specifically Harrison, is getting a second chance he absolutely does not deserve.
Trading Dončić is one thing, but the manner in which it was done, engaging with only one team, not squeezing every asset you could get out of the Lakers, and then kicking the five-time All-NBA First Team player who just led you to the NBA Finals on his way out was incredibly distasteful.
For months since the Dončić trade, Harrison has done nothing to ingratiate himself to Mavericks fans. He’s held a press conference with selective media members, skated around questions regarding a training staff he hired that had questionable tactics — several of whom were just fired by Harrison weeks after he touted they were the best in the league. When Dončić returned to Dallas for his first game in his former arena, “Fire Nico” chants were deafening every time there was a break in action.
Mavericks CEO Rick Welts said that Dallas landing the No. 1 pick “feels like a reversal of fortune, like of epic proportions to us.” Welts says this, as if the Mavericks being in this position isn’t self-inflicted. This isn’t as if Dončić requested a trade, ended on bad terms and forced his way to L.A. This was a decision by Harrison who felt like Dončić’s otherworldly offensive talents didn’t outweigh his defensive acumen and lack of conditioning. Welts calling it a “reversal of fortune” also, in a way, suggests that the decision to trade Doncic was a bad move, which, isn’t exactly a great show of support for Harrison.
There’s been reports suggesting that new Mavs governor Patrick Dumont doesn’t have blind faith in Harrison since the fallout of the Dončić deal, which should be positive news for Mavs fans. But how Dallas handles having the No. 1 overall pick will determine if that’s the case. Whose to say Harrison doesn’t pitch the idea of trading the draft pick in hopes of trying to land someone who can add to the win now ethos he’s been preaching every time he’s trying to defend the Dončić trade.
That’s the terrifying part for the Mavericks. None of the other 13 teams in the draft lottery would’ve likely entertained the thought of trading the rights to drafting Flagg, and yet it’s something Mavs fans have to sit with in the back of their minds because Harrison has already proven to be unpredictable on more than one occasion.
Harrison doesn’t deserve the opportunity to build around another generational talent like Flagg, and yet the ping pong balls fell in the Mavericks favor giving him the best exit strategy for a trade that has been nothing but disastrous for Dallas since.
