Dallas Mavericks GM Nico Harrison stands by Luka Doncic trade: Here’s what he said in closed-door meeting with media​on April 15, 2025 at 5:53 pm

DALLAS — Tune in to WFAA+ at noon for a breakdown of what was said during the closed-door, invite-only media roundtable with Mavs GM Nico Harrison and Mavs CEO Rick Welts. Here is how to download it to your smart TV.

Dallas Mavericks General Manager Nico Harrison stood by his decision to trade Luka Doncic in a closed-door, invite-only media roundtable Tuesday, reiterating his stance that defense wins championships and saying he has no regrets for sending the franchise player Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers.

“There’s no regrets on the trade,” Harrison told a small collection of reporters. “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.”

The roundtable invite, which was sent out with less than 24 hours’ notice, allowed 15 members of the press to attend the gathering with Harrison and Mavericks CEO Rick Welts. The invite to the event, which was held in the media boardroom on the platinum level of the American Airlines Center, promised “brief remarks followed by Q&A” with the top brass in the Mavericks organization.

The invite also clearly stipulated that no cameras or recording devices would be allowed in the meeting. 

Instead, the team said it would provide a transcript of the discussion to attending media members after the fact. The decision is just the latest in a series of questionable actions involving the Mavericks since the Doncic trade.

WFAA will post the transcription in this story once it is received. Meanwhile, WFAA’s representative to the invite-only discussion was sports reporter Michelle Montaine. 

Here were some of the most-notable takeaways from the meeting: 

• Harrison was asked about what he said to people who say he should be fired. 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 was asked if he would do the trade the same way, given the shock and angered response from the fans: Harrison said he has no regrets on the trade and he’s trying to do the best thing for the Mavs today and the future. He continued to say every trade he’s done has been met with high scrutiny, but eventually he will earn the trust of the community back and some of these trades will work out.
• Harrison: “There’s no regrets on the trade. 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.”
• Harrison said history will decide if the trade was a good one and reiterated that he believes 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.
• Harrison said he’s still optimistic about the future of the Mavs. He noted that after the Luka trade happened, the team was decimated by injuries. “A couple times, we’ve had three games in a row where we had eight players and only 7.5 of them could actually play,” Harrison continued. “But [the team] didn’t stop playing, so I’m super optimistic about that. And I believe in the trade that I made. … And I do believe that once we win, the fans will come back.”
• Harrison said personnel changes in the team will be focused on the roster, particularly with replacing Kyrie’s production as he recovers from his torn ACL. “Not one person is going to make up for Kyrie’s production and also Kyrie’s going to come back,” Harrison said. “Some of those guys we already have on the team and that will be our blueprint as we look to the draft.”
• When asked why it has taken 2.5 months to address the situation with the media, Harrison said he’s discussed with Welts how that could have been handled differently. Harrison added that he hoped “with the championship caliber team that we were going to put on the floor, a lot of the vitriol would have subsided, but that didn’t happen due to a lot of the injuries.” 
• ESPN’s Tim McMahon asked Harrison about his logic behind trading Luka when the team has no first round draft capital through 2030. Harrison deferred to the “defense wins championships” mantra and reiterated his belief that the team as currently constructed is a championship caliber team now and in future years. He said ultimately the future will hold if he’s right or wrong.
  • McMahon pressed back again, asking if Harrison believed the Luka-led NBA Finals team couldn’t win a championship. Harrison responded by saying simply “I’ll say this again, defense wins championships.”
• When asked why he kept the Doncic trade so secret, Harrison said he looked at the league and had targeted Anthony Davis as a player they wanted and he couldn’t publicly shop his best player. Harrison said shopping Doncic publicly would have not been responsible and the trade might not come to fruition.

Aside from a quick question he answered on the blue carpet at the Mavs Ball charity gala about how his month of February went, Tuesday’s meeting represented just the second time Harrison will have addressed the media since his late-night trade of Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday, Feb. 1. His only previous public address of the trade came the day after news of it broke, during a pre-game press conference ahead of a Mavericks game in Cleveland. 

Harrison, notably, did not attend the press conference in Dallas during which his trade acquisitions Anthony Davis, Max Christie and Caleb Martin were introduced to the media. 

His silence has become only more noticeable as fans have continued to chant “Fire Nico!” — everywhere, anywhere, whenever — in the two-and-a-half months since the trade came to pass.

Welts, who officially began his tenure as Mavs CEO just one month before the trade, has been more prevalent in the media post-Luka trade as he’s been pushing the team’s messaging about wanting a new arena by 2032 and trying to drum up support for the cause.

Initially, former Mavs majority owner Mark Cuban, who still owns a 27% stake in the team, was also keeping his thoughts on the state of the franchise post-trade to himself — until he addressed it in an interview with WFAA and the floodgates opened up. 

Meanwhile, the team’s governor and majority co-owner, Patrick Dumont, has been every bit as tight-lipped as Harrison. His only public comments have come in the form of a pre-recorded audio statement provided to the Dallas Morning News in the immediate wake of the trade, and remarks shared during a real estate luncheon he was honored at (that media was not allowed to attend).

WFAA has been in touch with Dumont’s press contacts with the Las Vegas Sands Corp. dozens of times in the now 500-plus days since news of his family’s purchase of the Mavericks first broke on Nov. 28, 2023, each time requesting a sit-down interview with the new top decision-maker in the organization. 

Every request has been denied to date. 

Just last week, a Sands Corp. spokesperson denied WFAA’s most recent inquiry for an interview, saying that, “In [Dumont’s] view, while he will speak on some matters related to the team, Nico Harrison and Rick Weltz [sic] run the organization and should be speaking for it.”

Tuesday was the first time Welts and Harrison have ever addressed the media alongside one another.   

“Patrick and his family love being stewards of the Mavericks and have deeply enjoyed their ownership experience over the last year and a half,” the spokesperson’s response to WFAA’s latest request continued. “They want what all Mavs want – a team that plays hard together and wins games. So, with that said, the focus should be on the remaining games the team has and its push to the playoffs. Coach Kidd and the staff have done a tremendous job putting the team in a position most thought would be unachievable a few short months ago.”

The Mavericks ended the 2024-2025 regular season with a record of 39-43. The team had a record of 26-23 at the time of the Doncic trade. It has posted a 13-20 record since. The team finished the season 10th in the Western Conference, making them the lowest-ranked team to reach the Play-In Tournament for a shot at the NBA Playoffs. 

The 2023-2024 Mavericks, led by Luka Doncic, reached the NBA Finals.

A recent ESPN report citing unnamed Mavericks sources said the Doncic trade could cost the franchise “nine figures over the next several years” based on slumping ticket sales, lower merch sales and the possible loss of sponsorships.

In spite of this, and seemingly everything else, the Mavericks announced early last month plans to increase ticket prices for next season.