November 12, 2025 • 9 mins
“Is firing Nico Harrison enough to fix the Mavericks—or is it just cosmetic?” That’s the question Ben Rogers, Jeff “Skin” Wade, Kevin “KT” Turner, and Krystina Ray tackle in this fiery episode of The Ben and Skin Show.The crew dives deep into the aftermath of what Ben calls “the worst trade in the history of humanity” and debates whether Dallas can salvage its future with Luka Doncic still in town. From salary cap nightmares to aging stars like AD, Kyrie, and Klay, the conversation gets brutally honest—and hilariously unfiltered.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I got bathe, he got to bathe.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I got babe for.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
When after with I showed your gone ruin it get
for similar for me pursuing it. Tould out shaws shaking
through the sewer. Kid.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Now we're chilling at the Eagle. Yeah, we're doing it.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Bring your clocking on the dot. Got a habit for
my house or don't? That is how we're starting getting
Craddit shows that enough multiplied like a rabbit.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
D in so out creak it up, beat the habit.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
I'm on man out with his little friends rocking on
the radio.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
My Biskin is talking on the radio. It's time to
to response in all you go o Katie to sting
up all them on our radio.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Ah, yes alone, Welcome everybody. It's the world famous Ben
and Skin Show ninety seven point one The Eagle. I'm
Ben Rogers, joined by Jeff skin Wade, Kevin K. T.
Turner and Christina a little baby corn Bread Ray. Yesterday
a momentous day in the history of Dallas Fort Worth,
as the perpetrator behind the worst trade in the history
(01:22):
of humanity was fired.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Nico is out with the Mavericks.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
I spent a lot of time thinking about it yesterday,
and I fear that it's only cosmetic. And here's why
I want to bounce some of this off you skin,
because a lot of it involves salary cap and stuff
like that.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I don't want to dig too deep into it.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
But yes, getting rid of Nico makes us all feel better.
And I hate it for the guy personally on a
personal level, watching him get those booze rain down on him.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
That sucked. I don't like that on a human level.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Felt compassion for the guy, but dude, it just losing
having Luca is such a gift. Having a player like
that is such a gift for a sports base, and
so for a town, for a city, for a community
that to lose it, to be self inflicted and lose
it and not get traded at forty three cents on
the dollar, it just hurts. And so getting rid of
(02:19):
Nico is good. But I think it's only cosmetic. And
I was thinking about it because really he's gone, But
the aftermath, in the wreckage from the trade and what
all it did remains. And here's what I mean specifically, Like, yes,
it was a terrible trade. You didn't get anywhere near
(02:40):
the right value return, and that's evidenced by what you
would have to trade to get Luca right now. It
would not be Ad Christy in a first round pick.
Right well, Luca's in shape now. So I was thinking
about it. I was like, okay, well they went for
this to win now, even though they had been to
the with Luca. They this was the way to win now.
(03:02):
And I understand there was things about Luca that are
incredibly frustrating. He wasn't in great shape. He kept having
soft tissue injuries. There was all sorts of drama and
stuff going on. I get it, but I still think,
you don't You don't trade Luca.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You figure out a way to sort through that.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Anyways, this trade, you know, with Nico is like, all right,
let's go get a d let's win with defense. Now
you got six seven years old or whatever, six years older,
six seven, you got.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Six years old. I'll say it always comes back to that.
But you know, for the win now window.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Ad turns thirty three in March, Kai turns thirty four
in March, and Clay will be thirty six in February,
and I believe those are their three highest paid players
on this year's payroll. Obviously got a deal done with
PJ and Gafford. But for this year, Okay, I think
the extensions, Yeah, I think those are the three highest
paid guys on this year's payroll. And so I since, okay,
so for win now mode, let's compare it to the
(03:56):
other best teams in the Western Conference. All right, Well,
I think okase, San Antonio, Houston and Denver are all
for sure better, all for sure better than the Mavericks.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
If the Mavericks are fully healthy, yes, I don't agree
with that, but I think that's fair.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
So and then if you look at those teams, you well,
I'll say this, I think I think Anthony Davis being
healthy only happens in a video game. Yeah, ma of
you turned the injuries off my mind, But to your point, yes,
and that's why I'm healthy. Yeah, if they're fully healthy,
they have two of the top twenty players in the world. Yeah,
if they're fully healthy, I don't think that will ever happen.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Again.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That's fair, and I think that's as of all the
criticisms of the trade, I think there's three or four
that are at the top of it, and those are
the movalid.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Like when I watch Anthony Davis play, I'm assuming he's
going to get hurt every play. Like, I'm just like,
oh no, you know, and I do not. I'm not
throwing shade. Elite player, one of the greatest of all time,
and I love Kai.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Can I say something that people like they don't know
how to process because you can say something great about
a player and it's not a negative on another player.
If Kyrie Irving is fully healthy, I enjoy watching a
team run by him more than I enjoy watching a
team run by Luca. That's just my opinion on how
I enjoy basketball. If he's fully healthy.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
I respect the hell out of that because Kay is
one of my favorite players ever watch, maybe my third
favorite player to ever watch.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It's probably Dirk than Luca.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Than Kai uh huh, but Luca just has the flare
from magic. It's also he's got that killer instinct. He's
got that duck. Kai is writing a love letter to
the game at basketball every time he touched one.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I love watch.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Again, I'm not it's not a diss on Luca, but
I just like basketball where everybody touches it.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I love that Kyle, that style of basketball.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
But I look at the teams that I think are
better than them in the West, and they're also younger.
Shay's twenty seven, Jalen's twenty four, Chet's twenty three. In
San Antonio, Fox is twenty seven, Castle and Wemby are
twenty one, Harper's nineteen. Even in Dent Houston, Katie's thirty seven,
but Shingoon is twenty three.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Thompson and Smith are twenty two. They got a twenty four.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Houston and San Antonio are more wild cards because they're
new teams in the mix. But I love both of
their teams. I think they're gonna be really effing good.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Even Denver of all these teams is they're the old,
the elderly ones, but they're significantly younger than ad Kin
and Clay, with Yo, Kitchen and Gordon being thirty, Murray's
twenty eight, Porter Juniors twenty five, and so forth and so.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
But you shouldn't include Clay. You should include Cooper Flag
like the top three guys. But I was just looking
at their three highest paid guys. I'm looking at the
way this roster was constructed. Now Cooper Flag landed in
their lap. Yeah, and that's but that's like that's like
a hail Mary. Yeah, the way I see that.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And so like the plan that was put together, let's
win now, you got so old. And so if you're like, okay,
if you just say all right, we're not going to
make it in the win now window, well let's look
to the build around Cooper flag window. Anytime I ask
somebody who understands the cap better than I do, how
(07:01):
about trading Anthony Davis or Kyrie Irving, they get a
furrowed brow and they start wincing and pain like they
pulled a hammy.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Kyrie will be easier to trade than Anthony Davis, I believe,
because he makes less, but he's not healthy right now,
so you can't trade him. And then Anthony Davis, you know,
you just have to start putting together trades that involve
four teams, you know. And so it's not like, hey,
where can we trade him? It's just it's just way
more complicated than that. So it's hard to fathom the
(07:34):
thing that the Mavericks need to do. I mean, it's
the GM's gonna can make the decision. Is they need
to trade one of their three centers and have a
d play more center. He start plays power forward, but
he needs to be playing a lot of center because
there's once you get into the playoffs, two bigs, that's
(07:55):
gonna it's gonna be a great battle who's actually rolling
with two bigs. There's times for Oklahoma City they needed
to bigs to get past the Mavericks that they couldn't
get past. And then they got to the playoffs and
they started altering that, Like everything changes in the playoffs, right,
So the Mavericks really leaned in on being big all
across the board. Depending on who you talk to, there's
a lot of people like, you can't do that in
modern offense. Ady doesn't shoot the three ball well enough
(08:18):
to have him be a power for it. He has
to be a center. And there's people that believe that.
And those things are true until they're not. Like small ball,
no one has ever down for small ball. It was
a gimmick until it no longer was and everyone was
shooting three point three points. Right, These things are a
certain way until a team is so dominant they changes it.
They change all of that, they change all that thinking.
(08:38):
And if you go and look look what Houston did.
Houston traded for Capella to have a third big, right,
this is, so is your team good enough to impose
their will with their style of play on the other team.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
So the way I see it, they're cooked in the
short term and they're cooked in the long term because
they don't really even if they tank could do horribly,
they're not gonna have their draft picks because until twenty
this year, they have their draft pick no matter what.
But the rest of them are either gone or part
of pick swaps with really good teams. And so the However,
(09:14):
if the MAVs are the worst team in the league, okay,
see one year gets their pick or I think San
Antonio one year gets their pick, and so tanking to
rebuild around Cooper flag isn't gonna work either.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
No, And I tell you what, let's get back into
this when we go around the sports, because there is
some good news to think about moving forward, and we're
gonna still be talking lots of mass because it's still
the biggest story. And of course they play tonight against
the Phoenix Suns. That's heard right here on ninety seven
point one. They egal all right, coming up next and
things skin is tracking. I'm gonna play you a piece
of audio of me and Ben with Dirt Noovitski, and
(09:46):
it's one of the coolest things you've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And that's next.
I got bathe, he got to bathe.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I got babe for.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
When after with I showed your gone ruin it get
for similar for me pursuing it. Tould out shaws shaking
through the sewer. Kid.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Now we're chilling at the Eagle. Yeah, we're doing it.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Bring your clocking on the dot. Got a habit for
my house or don't? That is how we're starting getting
Craddit shows that enough multiplied like a rabbit.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
D in so out creak it up, beat the habit.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
I'm on man out with his little friends rocking on
the radio.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
My Biskin is talking on the radio. It's time to
to response in all you go o Katie to sting
up all them on our radio.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Ah, yes alone, Welcome everybody. It's the world famous Ben
and Skin Show ninety seven point one The Eagle. I'm
Ben Rogers, joined by Jeff skin Wade, Kevin K. T.
Turner and Christina a little baby corn Bread Ray. Yesterday
a momentous day in the history of Dallas Fort Worth,
as the perpetrator behind the worst trade in the history
(01:22):
of humanity was fired.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Nico is out with the Mavericks.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
I spent a lot of time thinking about it yesterday,
and I fear that it's only cosmetic. And here's why
I want to bounce some of this off you skin,
because a lot of it involves salary cap and stuff
like that.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I don't want to dig too deep into it.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
But yes, getting rid of Nico makes us all feel better.
And I hate it for the guy personally on a
personal level, watching him get those booze rain down on him.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
That sucked. I don't like that on a human level.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Felt compassion for the guy, but dude, it just losing
having Luca is such a gift. Having a player like
that is such a gift for a sports base, and
so for a town, for a city, for a community
that to lose it, to be self inflicted and lose
it and not get traded at forty three cents on
the dollar, it just hurts. And so getting rid of
(02:19):
Nico is good. But I think it's only cosmetic. And
I was thinking about it because really he's gone, But
the aftermath, in the wreckage from the trade and what
all it did remains. And here's what I mean specifically, Like, yes,
it was a terrible trade. You didn't get anywhere near
(02:40):
the right value return, and that's evidenced by what you
would have to trade to get Luca right now. It
would not be Ad Christy in a first round pick.
Right well, Luca's in shape now. So I was thinking
about it. I was like, okay, well they went for
this to win now, even though they had been to
the with Luca. They this was the way to win now.
(03:02):
And I understand there was things about Luca that are
incredibly frustrating. He wasn't in great shape. He kept having
soft tissue injuries. There was all sorts of drama and
stuff going on. I get it, but I still think,
you don't You don't trade Luca.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You figure out a way to sort through that.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Anyways, this trade, you know, with Nico is like, all right,
let's go get a d let's win with defense. Now
you got six seven years old or whatever, six years older,
six seven, you got.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Six years old. I'll say it always comes back to that.
But you know, for the win now window.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Ad turns thirty three in March, Kai turns thirty four
in March, and Clay will be thirty six in February,
and I believe those are their three highest paid players
on this year's payroll. Obviously got a deal done with
PJ and Gafford. But for this year, Okay, I think
the extensions, Yeah, I think those are the three highest
paid guys on this year's payroll. And so I since, okay,
so for win now mode, let's compare it to the
(03:56):
other best teams in the Western Conference. All right, Well,
I think okase, San Antonio, Houston and Denver are all
for sure better, all for sure better than the Mavericks.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
If the Mavericks are fully healthy, yes, I don't agree
with that, but I think that's fair.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
So and then if you look at those teams, you well,
I'll say this, I think I think Anthony Davis being
healthy only happens in a video game. Yeah, ma of
you turned the injuries off my mind, But to your point, yes,
and that's why I'm healthy. Yeah, if they're fully healthy,
they have two of the top twenty players in the world. Yeah,
if they're fully healthy, I don't think that will ever happen.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Again.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That's fair, and I think that's as of all the
criticisms of the trade, I think there's three or four
that are at the top of it, and those are
the movalid.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Like when I watch Anthony Davis play, I'm assuming he's
going to get hurt every play. Like, I'm just like,
oh no, you know, and I do not. I'm not
throwing shade. Elite player, one of the greatest of all time,
and I love Kai.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Can I say something that people like they don't know
how to process because you can say something great about
a player and it's not a negative on another player.
If Kyrie Irving is fully healthy, I enjoy watching a
team run by him more than I enjoy watching a
team run by Luca. That's just my opinion on how
I enjoy basketball. If he's fully healthy.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
I respect the hell out of that because Kay is
one of my favorite players ever watch, maybe my third
favorite player to ever watch.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It's probably Dirk than Luca.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Than Kai uh huh, but Luca just has the flare
from magic. It's also he's got that killer instinct. He's
got that duck. Kai is writing a love letter to
the game at basketball every time he touched one.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I love watch.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Again, I'm not it's not a diss on Luca, but
I just like basketball where everybody touches it.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I love that Kyle, that style of basketball.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
But I look at the teams that I think are
better than them in the West, and they're also younger.
Shay's twenty seven, Jalen's twenty four, Chet's twenty three. In
San Antonio, Fox is twenty seven, Castle and Wemby are
twenty one, Harper's nineteen. Even in Dent Houston, Katie's thirty seven,
but Shingoon is twenty three.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Thompson and Smith are twenty two. They got a twenty four.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Houston and San Antonio are more wild cards because they're
new teams in the mix. But I love both of
their teams. I think they're gonna be really effing good.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Even Denver of all these teams is they're the old,
the elderly ones, but they're significantly younger than ad Kin
and Clay, with Yo, Kitchen and Gordon being thirty, Murray's
twenty eight, Porter Juniors twenty five, and so forth and so.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
But you shouldn't include Clay. You should include Cooper Flag
like the top three guys. But I was just looking
at their three highest paid guys. I'm looking at the
way this roster was constructed. Now Cooper Flag landed in
their lap. Yeah, and that's but that's like that's like
a hail Mary. Yeah, the way I see that.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And so like the plan that was put together, let's
win now, you got so old. And so if you're like, okay,
if you just say all right, we're not going to
make it in the win now window, well let's look
to the build around Cooper flag window. Anytime I ask
somebody who understands the cap better than I do, how
(07:01):
about trading Anthony Davis or Kyrie Irving, they get a
furrowed brow and they start wincing and pain like they
pulled a hammy.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Kyrie will be easier to trade than Anthony Davis, I believe,
because he makes less, but he's not healthy right now,
so you can't trade him. And then Anthony Davis, you know,
you just have to start putting together trades that involve
four teams, you know. And so it's not like, hey,
where can we trade him? It's just it's just way
more complicated than that. So it's hard to fathom the
(07:34):
thing that the Mavericks need to do. I mean, it's
the GM's gonna can make the decision. Is they need
to trade one of their three centers and have a
d play more center. He start plays power forward, but
he needs to be playing a lot of center because
there's once you get into the playoffs, two bigs, that's
(07:55):
gonna it's gonna be a great battle who's actually rolling
with two bigs. There's times for Oklahoma City they needed
to bigs to get past the Mavericks that they couldn't
get past. And then they got to the playoffs and
they started altering that, Like everything changes in the playoffs, right,
So the Mavericks really leaned in on being big all
across the board. Depending on who you talk to, there's
a lot of people like, you can't do that in
modern offense. Ady doesn't shoot the three ball well enough
(08:18):
to have him be a power for it. He has
to be a center. And there's people that believe that.
And those things are true until they're not. Like small ball,
no one has ever down for small ball. It was
a gimmick until it no longer was and everyone was
shooting three point three points. Right, These things are a
certain way until a team is so dominant they changes it.
They change all of that, they change all that thinking.
(08:38):
And if you go and look look what Houston did.
Houston traded for Capella to have a third big, right,
this is, so is your team good enough to impose
their will with their style of play on the other team.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
So the way I see it, they're cooked in the
short term and they're cooked in the long term because
they don't really even if they tank could do horribly,
they're not gonna have their draft picks because until twenty
this year, they have their draft pick no matter what.
But the rest of them are either gone or part
of pick swaps with really good teams. And so the However,
(09:14):
if the MAVs are the worst team in the league, okay,
see one year gets their pick or I think San
Antonio one year gets their pick, and so tanking to
rebuild around Cooper flag isn't gonna work either.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
No, And I tell you what, let's get back into
this when we go around the sports, because there is
some good news to think about moving forward, and we're
gonna still be talking lots of mass because it's still
the biggest story. And of course they play tonight against
the Phoenix Suns. That's heard right here on ninety seven
point one. They egal all right, coming up next and
things skin is tracking. I'm gonna play you a piece
of audio of me and Ben with Dirt Noovitski, and
(09:46):
it's one of the coolest things you've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And that's next.
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