maverick_41 wrote:Who is the source of this assumption? Other GMs? They work in the different league with different KPIs. Niko is safe. He usurped the power in Mavs corporation, his rule will continue.
Even if I personally think he has done a terrible job, I also generally agree with you.
All of the other would-be decision makers are gone. Who would they quickly pivot to having make basketball related decisions? While I would agree that keeping him in charge through the trade deadline is a legit risk, it's not like they're going to hire a long-term replacement mid-season, and no temporary replacement could actually make impactful changes mid-season. And it's not just Harrison that has been making bad decisions, but rather that bad decision-making flows all the way to the top, especially as the decision to trade Luka was truly an ownership decision as they didn't want to give him that huge max extension. That huge extension would have locked them into the luxury tax for the future, and they clearly didn't want that. They instead pivoted to having their best players on smaller and shorter contracts (compared to Luka's potential extension), which sounds nice in theory, except when the reality on the basketball court is that you're trading a reasonably young MVP candidate for an older all-star with a history of lingering injuries. And you didn't even get much else in the deal. Everyone else knew it was **** stupid.
Sure, Luka isn't good at defense, and he is one of the most annoying players in the league with his constant whining, but he is still a fairly big positive on the floor. They should have made moves to get solid defenders who give max effort to put around him, folks like Steven Adams, GP II, Alex Caruso, etc and look for folks like Taj Gibson to draft. That's the route decision makers at other franchises likely would have proceeded with (while keeping Luka). Instead he targeted getting his man-crush Anthony Davis and got low-balled for his top asset in the process.
Separately, that last sentence of the "article" -
The Mavs GM then put together a roster this offseason that was light on ballhandling and playmaking
- is pretty unfair for a team that has an injured Kyrie Irving. Sure, every team would like more depth, but if Kyrie is healthy they would be excelling in ballhandling and playmaking.
