After a 3-8 start to the 2025-26 season, the Mavericks have opted to fire general manager Nico Harrison.
It's a monumental decision and, to some, was inevitable the moment Harrison traded superstar Luka Dončić to the Lakers. That trade was utterly shocking and Harrison’s vision in executing it—to build a defense-first team around Anthony Davis—needed to take shape immediately. If it didn’t, the fact that he traded a 26-year-old perennial MVP candidate would loom large as an obviously short-sighted decision that would lead to severe consequences. Not even the franchise lucking into Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft would save him.
Well, the vision didn’t come together. Davis managed to play only four games this season before getting hurt, a recurring issue for him throughout his NBA career. Dallas, already without Kyrie Irving as he recovers from a torn ACL last March, has played ugly and losing basketball. Thus, the consequences have come. The Mavs have decided Harrison’s plan wasn’t going to work and they fired him.
With Harrison gone, a Davis trade now seems very much on the table. AD was the centerpiece of Harris’s motivation for trading Dončić. If the Mavericks have decided they no longer want Harrison’s plan, it makes sense they might not be as high on Davis as Harrison was. Furthermore, the 32-year-old forward is a poor positional fit next to Flagg and figures to fetch by far the best return out of anybody on the roster should Dallas decide to make changes to a team that clearly is not well-suited to win basketball games.
To put it more simply, the Mavericks appear ready for a fresh start by firing Harrison. Trading Davis is the quickest, easiest way to wipe the slate clean of the Harrison era while still cultivating an environment in which Flagg can reach his potential. It’s no guarantee; when he’s on the court AD still very talented and seems like a good veteran presence for Flagg, too. But without Harrison the long-term future of the franchise is up in the air outside of Flagg and they simply have to consider trading Davis to understand what that future would look like.
At 32 years old with a history of injury and three years left on a $175 million extension, it won’t be easy to find trade partners for Davis. But they’ll be out there. In exchange the Mavericks should hope to acquire players that fit next to Flagg and/or draft picks to restock their cupboard after Harrison traded their 2027, 2028, and 2029 first-round picks. It would be nice to land pieces that can help the team win right now but the priority is a future build around the talents of Flagg.
In terms of finances, the Mavericks are over the first apron with $1.2 million in space below the second apron, and they are hard-capped at that apron. That means they can’t bring back any more money than they send out in a Davis trade. Furthermore with Davis currently injured a trade in the immediate future is unlikely, but once he gets healthy anything should be on the table.
Here are four trades the Mavericks should consider for Davis now that Harrison and his plans are no longer part of Dallas’s future (trades via the Fanspo trade machine).
Chicago Bulls
The Bulls have gotten off to a shockingly hot start this season, going 6-4 in the opening 10 games thanks to a fast-paced offense that operates around the talents of Josh Giddey. Chicago may not want to mess with a good thing and it would be tough to blame the front office for thinking that way. But the franchise is always trying to get fans in seats and landing a big name like Davis would definitely help to that end; he’s not only an All-NBA talent but a Chicago native as well. Slotting him alongside Giddey and Matas Buzelis makes for a solid core that can win now with plenty of future potential too—a possibly enticing reality given how weak the East is this year.
On the Mavs’ end, this is an OK return. White will be an unrestricted free agent next summer, which could prove troubling, but he’s an electric scorer and would be a much better fit for the role D’Angelo Russell currently occupies. Vucevic wouldn’t help unclog the front court but he’s useful and could be flipped, while Smith is there to make the money work. Then they get a ‘26 first-rounder to add to their own in this year’s draft.
In a vacuum it’s a subpar trade package for a player of Davis’s talent. But if the Mavs want to wash their hands clean of the Harrison era and get useful pieces in return, this is a good match that opens up further options to fiddle with the roster. Chicago may waver on messing with a winning recipe for a player with Davis’s injury history but ultimately this sort of talent doesn’t become available every day.
Miami Heat
Like the Bulls the Heat are doing just fine to start this season, with a 7-4 record spurred by a whirlwind offense that features almost no pick-and-rolls. The franchise has long placed a massive burden on coach Erik Spoelstra’s shoulders to get the most out of his group every year and he’s doing it again this season. In a weak East they are definitely playoff contenders and maybe even NBA Finals contenders, but nobody can fool themselves into believing Miami’s group can really hang with the best the West has to offer as far as championship contention.
That could change with Davis in the fold. The world saw how comically dominant a frontcourt featuring AD and Bam Adebayo can be during the 2024 Olympics. The two are skilled enough offensively to play with one another despite a lack of shooting and defensively they completely blanket the paint, making every trip to the rim a Herculean effort. A starting five with those stars, Norman Powell, Jaime Jacquez Jr., and Nikola Jovic is definitely good enough to give the East all it can handle—and probably enough to give them a fighting chance against more talented, deeper rosters.
For the Mavericks, Herro is an ideal backcourt partner for Flagg. He’s only 25 years old and under contract for a reasonable sum. Mitchell gives the roster a point-of-attack defender it completely lacks right now, and Fontecchio is a perfectly fine replacement-level wing on most nights. The Heat can’t offer much in the way of picks but their 2030 selection is better than nothing.
The one kicker on this trade: it can’t be executed for a few months as Mitchell can’t be included in any transaction until January 15, a few weeks before the deadline.
Toronto Raptors
This is one of the few player-for-player trades that is possible money-wise and makes some modicum of sense for both teams.
The Raptors, from all appearances, are trying to win this season with a core four of Quickley, Barrett, Scottie Barnes, and Brandon Ingram. So far it hasn’t worked too well, with Toronto muddling at .500 and putting up mediocre stats on both ends of the court. It’s a little quick to declare the experiment failed for all sorts of reasons but if Davis hits the market the Raptors have to at least consider a move; blowing up the core to land a star worked out pretty well last time, after all. There are many, many differences between this situation and what happened with Kawhi Leonard but there’s proof of concept there for the organization to lean on.
Quickley and Barrett would be a great haul for Dallas. They are flawed players both but fill needs for the Mavs. Quickley isn’t a true point guard in the shape this roster really needs but he’d be tremendously useful at the 1 both with and without Irving on the floor. Barrett is shooting nearly 40% from three and flashes occasional secondary playmaking chops that would make Flagg’s life easier. Is he that different from P.J. Washington? No, but no roster can have enough switchable wings that can shoot.
It’s a big haul for the Raptors to give up, especially given Davis’s fit becomes clunky without Barrett or Quickley’s scoring. But they have other pieces to maneuver in order to build the roster around AD and Barnes. A possible, if unlikely, scenario for both sides to consider.
Sacramento Kings
This would be the “get as many draft assets as possible” version of an AD trade for the Mavericks.
The Kings are once again flailing with no direction with a 3-7 record to start the year. It is obvious to everyone that the DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Domantas Sabonis core is not good enough to win in a competitive West—which would be true even if we hadn’t already seen the middling impact of a DeRozan-LaVine duo on the court. This represents a rare opportunity for Sacramento to change course in a meaningful way without just giving away the good players on the roster. Does a core of Davis, Sabonis, and LaVine really move the needle? Probably not. But it’s a better bet to work than what the Kings are currently trotting out there. Especially since AD seems like one of the few frontcourt partners who could thrive with Sabonis given his defensive instincts and lack of desire to bang down low with other centers throughout the regular season.
The Mavs get DeRozan, who is still chugging along averaging 20 points per game, to take some of the ballhandling duties away from Flagg. Monk can do the same. But more importantly this trade would restock the draft pick stores. The Minnesota pick is a while out but has a good amount of value and a ‘26 pick from Sacramento could prove mighty enticing if the Kings are reckless enough to give it away without proections. The San Antonio pick seems unlikely to convey given how good Victor Wembanyama is but non-lottery protected picks are always enticing given the unpredictability of each NBA season.
This isn’t what the Kings do, but it does seem like a move they’d make. And Dallas has a lot to like about this theoretical offer.
