November 11, 2025 • 16 mins
The crew dives deep into the Dallas Mavericks’ decision to part ways with GM Nico Harrison after a brutal 3–8 start and the fallout from what might be the most catastrophic trade in NBA history. From viral clips of “Fire Nico” chants echoing through the arena to Skin’s firsthand account of Nico’s defeated body language, this episode pulls back the curtain on the drama inside the AAC.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
After we're gonna showed your gone blue win did get
some We're similar to be pursuing it. Puddled out Shaw
shaking through the sewer. Kid, Now what chilling at the eagle? Yeah,
we're doing it. Three your clocking on the dock. Got
a habit for my house? Or go stat is how
it started. Kid Cratic shows that enough multiplied like a
(00:34):
radit to in some out creak it up.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Beat the habit.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I'm a hang out with his little friends blocking it
on the radio.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
My little you know boys, get talking on the radio.
It's time to do in sponsor gain.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
All.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Here we go kayt to sting up and see.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh yes, thank you for tuning in today on a
Tuesday to the world famous Ben and Skin Show. And
it is Veterans Day, a Veterans Day edition of our show.
So we want to say thank you to everybody out
there who has served in the military and thank their
families as well.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
This show is dedicated to you guys.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
In ay, we're all hands on deck, Ben Rogers, Jeff
skin Wade, Kevin K. T. Turner and Christina little Baby
corn Bread Ray. And there's massive news today obviously as
Nico Harrison is out as general manager of the Dallas Mavericks,
we knew this was coming. It felt imminent, and last
night at that game, Skin, I mean, there you are broadcasting.
(01:42):
I saw this on social media, and I saw a
lot of stuff on social media. One of the things
I saw was the fire Nico chants were so loud
in the arena that people that lived nearby could hear
those chants clearly and make up what they were saying.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
I don't think that's accurate, because I was wearing a
headset and we're like, what's kind of going on? Like, yeah,
I mean, I bet there are people outside chanting it,
though I could hear.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It through the broadcast.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah, for what that's worth, fire Nico chants were loud,
and there was also on social media because you're you're
in this shot. They were zooming in on Nico, And
it was in that moment that for the first time
I felt bad, because I felt bad for him as
a human being, just human to human. Obviously, it's the
(02:26):
worst trade in the history of humanity. Like, it's such
a bad trade that we'll probably never see a trade
that bad ever again in all the world, in any category,
much less sports. It's the worst trade that's ever happened.
But as that man sat there alone in that chair
and his team was losing again and those chants rained.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Down on him, I felt bad for him.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Yeah, you know, I also think and that clip has
gone around and it's viral, and it means a lot
to me because my daughter's in it.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
She was saying, oh, is that right? Yeah, I heard
her boyfriend were sitting behind us last night.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
But you know that clip, the one that I've seen
that's going around, that's late in the game, and it
was after PJ missed that free throw and or my
you know, it possibly could have been the one. There
was one that's there was basically there was about four
chants last night and they started happening when the mavericksron
bad runs like you know that that run that Milwaukee
(03:24):
went on where they were bombing those threes and getting
back in the game. That's when they started. And then
they were again late in the game, and then they
finally after PJ. Washington missed that second free throw, they
started up again, and I think that that's when that
clip that's going around was taken. But the other thing
about that clip is at that point, and you know,
(03:46):
I didn't talk to a miss Day or even see him.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
He was behind me. I didn't see him.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
It was actually my daughter's boyfriend said, you know, Nico
was sitting right back there. I was like, well, I've
seen him back there, but I didn't know. But he
also at that point, that's a man that's publicly sitting
there and knows.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
He's about to be fired.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Yeah, you know, and so that probably who knows what
he's thinking today, you know, who knows what he's going
through or whatever. But he's been through a lot of chance.
And I've actually seen fans go up to him because
he has been sitting there in some of the interactions
and stuff. And remember that clip that was going around
to those guys that were Texas tech fans that went
(04:21):
up to him and he was okay, So he's dealt
with a lot of this stuff. But that clip that
you're referring to was the first time I've seen his
body language look like that. Yeah, And to me, it
looked like the body language of a man that knows,
all right, I'm going to be fired.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Defeated. Yeah, you know, there's just.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
The trade is so bad, just to trade a global
icon for a guy that's never healthy, that's six years older,
and you just got fleeced by the Lakers. You didn't
get near enough return for him, and it just sets
you back as a franchise so much that you know
this is a pr thing.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Though moving on from him is.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Like, there's no they don't have the next GM ready
to go, right, It's just like, hey, look, we got
to get this negative energy away. Like I can't imagine
that there's any moves that are going to be made
before the trade deadline. I can't imagine because we'll talk
about all this stuff throughout the show. But getting the
next GM is a critical thing. You don't do it
(05:25):
in the middle of the season.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
So matt Riccardi, who's the assistant GM who's been here
for I think since twenty twenty two maybe, and Michael
Finley who's also the assistant GM, who's been here a
long time, they're co interim gms.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well they've already been here.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
So basically it's like, hey, put your hand on this
steering wheel because the guy who's driving is gone, but
just keep your hand on the.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Same they're right there.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Unless Usually what happens if like in the case of
the Dumont Natilson family. They're part of this big giant
corporation that runs casinos. So what they're gonna do is
they're going to hire an outside firm to start doing analysis.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Here are the candidates.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
And by the way, that's what Cuban did when he
landed on Nico. Cuban consulted with one of these firms.
It's pretty common in sports. If you don't have basketball
ties and bloodlines, you know, then that's what you do.
You do what any major corporation does. You bring in
an outside professional firm that specializes in sports consulting. Here
are the candidates. Here's who you should talk to because
(06:28):
this Patrick Dumont's been in this world for less than
two years, less than two years, and he's not here
every day. He's running casinos all over the world, it resorts,
so he's not equipped to just come in and go
all right, here's our next GM Like this is to her,
You said it right, This is basically what's happening is
not working. It feels catastrophic. There's tons of negative energy.
(06:51):
We have to do something to make our fans happy,
and it's pretty clear no fans want Nico Harrison here
so we'll eliminate that.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Hopefully it'll give us some oxygen to breathe.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
But they're not going to make any massive moves until
they have a new GM in place. It's crazy too,
because even if you say, all right, man, this trade
is the worst trade that's ever happened. We screwed and
torpedoed our own franchise, were cooked. Let's just rebuild. You're
gonna find out hard it's going to be to trade
ad or Kai if you want to do that, because
(07:22):
it's all gonna be basically almost impossible to trade Anthony Davis,
which then you go back to just eighteen months ago.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
We traded Luca for Anthony Davis. We traded the MVP
for a guy that now we won't be able to
get rid of. You know, what I really think is
going to happen. What I really think is going to
happen is the most telling thing of all of this,
about a guy who's like, all right, I'm taking a
deep breath, I'm going to exhale, and we're going to
(07:51):
figure out how to fix this thing. They have Cooper Flag, Okay,
that's a great place to start. They've got a lot
of good players, dealing with a lot of injuries right now.
If they didn't have all these injuries, I think that
they would be winning some games and it would be
a different environment. There would still be all the fire
Nico stuff and all that would be going on, but
it would feel different around the team. So they have injuries.
(08:15):
But the Anthony Davis thing, I don't know if you
guys remember last week. I thought Anthony Davis was playing
last weekend. I was pretty confident he was going to play.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Anthony Davis and Nico Harrison tried to get Anthony Davis
on the court this weekend against Washington, and Patrick Dumont
was one of the people, according to all accounts, saying,
hold on a second, we don't need to have a
repeat of what happened last year. And that's an indication
they had already made their decision. We're going in a
different direction.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Now.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
We have to figure out how to unroll that and
how to figure out but there's not going to be
any seismic moves about the next direction. We're eleven games
into a basketball season. What they're going to try to
do is get everybody healthy when they get healthy, and
as us, what they have because right now they just
had to eliminate all the negative energy that was permeating
(09:06):
around the team that losing exacerbated. Right, everyone already had
that negative energy for Nico. Now compound that with three
and eight.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I don't think this is going to get rid of
the negative energy. I think it's gonna get rid of
a lot of it. Just it's gonna get rid of
the fire Nico chance. But the reality that sets in
that you're trapped and you can't win with this team
the way it's constructed, I think is I think that's
gonna I think that's going to do some damage to
Let's do this. Let's coming up next. Let's turn our
(09:36):
attention to the way that they made the announcement. Let's
have KT do a dramatic reading of Patrick Dumont's letter
Benn Skin Show ninety seven point one the Eagle. Don't forget.
All week long, we're giving away nine inch nails tickets.
Be listening for your chance to win. We use that
iHeart app to talk back feature.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
But there's going to be a clue from something that
happened in the show, and then you'll have a chance
to win.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
So be listening all day long. The big story of
the day.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Nico Harrison, the general manager of the Dallas Mavericks, or
maybe he was just president of basketball operations, but he
has been relieved of his duties. All the wind was
blowing that direction. The maverickshow to a very bad three
and eight start almost one last night against Milwaukee in
an incredible game by Cooper Flagg, but the very end
(10:20):
controversial play, he falls down and they lose their chance
to win that one. But they've been competitive the last
couple games. They are playing better, but there's still three
and eight chants of fire, Nico raining down, and Nico
Harrison was fired or let go. This morning, Patrick Dumont
was in town for all of that, and as part
(10:41):
of that, he fired off a letter to the fans,
an open letter to the fans, and here with the
dramatic reading, is our own Kevin K. T.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Turner.
Speaker 6 (10:50):
Hello, is this thing on? I'd like to start this
announcement with a joke. Did you know the man who
invented the Ferris Wheel and the man who invented the
Merry go Round have never met? That's right, because they
travel in different circles. Okay, let's get down to business. Dear,
MAVs family, you have every right to demand a commitment
to success from us. No one associated with the Mavericks
(11:13):
organization is happy with the start of what we all
believed would be a promising season. I've made the decision
to part ways with general manager Nico Harrison. This decision
was critical to moving our franchise forward in a positive direction.
I understand the profound impact these difficult last several months
have had. Please know that I'm fully committed to the
(11:33):
success of the Mavericks. Thank you for your support, thank
you for holding us accountable, and thank you for your
passion and for your patience. You deserve transparency and a
team that reflects your spirit. Our goal is to return
winning basketball to Dallas and win championships. Our family is
committed to that mission and to continuing to invest in
(11:55):
Dallas and the Mavericks future.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Go MAVs. Thank you. Patrick Wow. I love the choice
of joke at the beginning. Yeah, I didn't know that.
I didn't read that in the letter.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah, man, this is uh, this is this is just
bad on every level. Look, it's a perfect storm of
terribleness that this happened where Niko had already been kind
of living in a political landscape and getting rid of
other voices in there that had power to where when
some casinos come in come, some casino owners come in
and buy this team and couldn't even pick a basketball
(12:31):
out of a police lineup. He's the only one with power,
with no checks and balances, and he he made this
trade without anybody being able to have any input to
stop it. And so I appreciate this move. It's the
right move. But you know, at the same time, it's
like he's like, I'm gonna do everything I can now.
I gotta go jump on a plane. I'll be back
in a month.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
It's like, it just is what it is.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
These guys are there, they're casino moguls, and they're some
of the richest people in the world, and they want
to build a big resort casino here. But I don't know, man,
the after effects of this are not going away anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Firing Nicos doesn't undo the trade. It just gets rid
of a lot of negative pr. Yeah, that's what it does.
It gets rid of negative pr. It's interesting.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Both McMahon and Stein had in their reports that before
the game, Mark Cuban and Rick Welts met with Patrick Dumont's. Now,
if you don't know who Rick Welts is, he's the
CEO of the team.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
He was brought in.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
A little bit after this time last year, sent was
still around. He was brought in basically to oversee, you know,
he the new arena. He did that for the Golden
State Warriors. He was the CEO for the Golden State
Warriors during the dynasty. So it has these relationships with
Clay and staff and the Warriors organization, which culturally is phenomenal.
(13:54):
He also worked in Phoenix with Steve Kerr and Steve Nash,
launched the WNBA. He invented All Star Weekend. Like there's
all these amazing things that Rick Welts is in the
Basketball Hall of Fame. He's a Hall of Famer. He
was retired. He was brought in to oversee the new
arena and the new thing that this family, the Dumont
(14:16):
family and the Addison family are doing. And he had
been on the job for I don't know, like a month,
and then Luca was traded and he was suddenly the
CEO during a public relations crisis.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It's not what he signed up for, but that's what happened.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
And so the report that Stein and McMahon had that
Patrick was in there meeting with Rick and meeting with
Mark and figuring out how they're going to do this
and what they're going to do next, which is also
lent credence to this idea that Dennis Lindsay, who works
for the Detroit Pistons right now, could possibly be brought in.
(14:52):
But one of the things that's interesting is whenever you
have you were talking about a political landscape, whenever you
have chaos, people who are savvy operatives, if you whatever
you want to call it, they either get power or
reassert their power. And Mark Cuban was stripped of all
his power when he sold the team. He's been public
(15:13):
about that. He didn't think he was doing that, That's
what happened. And so I would assume that they're going
to move forward in a new direction with a new
GM and all this stuff, and Cuban will not have
input on basketball operations. But I think it's good that
Patrick talked to Mark and talked to Rick, because who
else in this organization should he be talking to, right
(15:34):
That's it, man, those are the guys that are Rick
is a basketball lifer. He's been in the NBA since
the seventies. And you know, Mark has been here in Dallas,
knows his fan base for twenty five years or more.
So he's a good guy to talk to. But this
is going to be a process to figure out who
comes in here next.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yeah, And I just think Dumont's, you know, they're culpable
in this too. And I think it's very possible that
Fire and Nico Chance just turn in to sell the
team Chance, but they've got, they've bought it themselves a
little bit of time to to turn this around. Hopefully
they can't. All right, we're gonna take us in things.
Skin is tracking all right.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Coming up next, let's talk about when companies get too big,
After we're gonna showed your gone blue win did get
some We're similar to be pursuing it. Puddled out Shaw
shaking through the sewer. Kid, Now what chilling at the eagle? Yeah,
we're doing it. Three your clocking on the dock. Got
a habit for my house? Or go stat is how
it started. Kid Cratic shows that enough multiplied like a
(00:34):
radit to in some out creak it up.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Beat the habit.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I'm a hang out with his little friends blocking it
on the radio.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
My little you know boys, get talking on the radio.
It's time to do in sponsor gain.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
All.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Here we go kayt to sting up and see.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh yes, thank you for tuning in today on a
Tuesday to the world famous Ben and Skin Show. And
it is Veterans Day, a Veterans Day edition of our show.
So we want to say thank you to everybody out
there who has served in the military and thank their
families as well.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
This show is dedicated to you guys.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
In ay, we're all hands on deck, Ben Rogers, Jeff
skin Wade, Kevin K. T. Turner and Christina little Baby
corn Bread Ray. And there's massive news today obviously as
Nico Harrison is out as general manager of the Dallas Mavericks,
we knew this was coming. It felt imminent, and last
night at that game, Skin, I mean, there you are broadcasting.
(01:42):
I saw this on social media, and I saw a
lot of stuff on social media. One of the things
I saw was the fire Nico chants were so loud
in the arena that people that lived nearby could hear
those chants clearly and make up what they were saying.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
I don't think that's accurate, because I was wearing a
headset and we're like, what's kind of going on? Like, yeah,
I mean, I bet there are people outside chanting it,
though I could hear.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It through the broadcast.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah, for what that's worth, fire Nico chants were loud,
and there was also on social media because you're you're
in this shot. They were zooming in on Nico, And
it was in that moment that for the first time
I felt bad, because I felt bad for him as
a human being, just human to human. Obviously, it's the
(02:26):
worst trade in the history of humanity. Like, it's such
a bad trade that we'll probably never see a trade
that bad ever again in all the world, in any category,
much less sports. It's the worst trade that's ever happened.
But as that man sat there alone in that chair
and his team was losing again and those chants rained.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Down on him, I felt bad for him.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Yeah, you know, I also think and that clip has
gone around and it's viral, and it means a lot
to me because my daughter's in it.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
She was saying, oh, is that right? Yeah, I heard
her boyfriend were sitting behind us last night.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
But you know that clip, the one that I've seen
that's going around, that's late in the game, and it
was after PJ missed that free throw and or my
you know, it possibly could have been the one. There
was one that's there was basically there was about four
chants last night and they started happening when the mavericksron
bad runs like you know that that run that Milwaukee
(03:24):
went on where they were bombing those threes and getting
back in the game. That's when they started. And then
they were again late in the game, and then they
finally after PJ. Washington missed that second free throw, they
started up again, and I think that that's when that
clip that's going around was taken. But the other thing
about that clip is at that point, and you know,
(03:46):
I didn't talk to a miss Day or even see him.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
He was behind me. I didn't see him.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
It was actually my daughter's boyfriend said, you know, Nico
was sitting right back there. I was like, well, I've
seen him back there, but I didn't know. But he
also at that point, that's a man that's publicly sitting
there and knows.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
He's about to be fired.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Yeah, you know, and so that probably who knows what
he's thinking today, you know, who knows what he's going
through or whatever. But he's been through a lot of chance.
And I've actually seen fans go up to him because
he has been sitting there in some of the interactions
and stuff. And remember that clip that was going around
to those guys that were Texas tech fans that went
(04:21):
up to him and he was okay, So he's dealt
with a lot of this stuff. But that clip that
you're referring to was the first time I've seen his
body language look like that. Yeah, And to me, it
looked like the body language of a man that knows,
all right, I'm going to be fired.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Defeated. Yeah, you know, there's just.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
The trade is so bad, just to trade a global
icon for a guy that's never healthy, that's six years older,
and you just got fleeced by the Lakers. You didn't
get near enough return for him, and it just sets
you back as a franchise so much that you know
this is a pr thing.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Though moving on from him is.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Like, there's no they don't have the next GM ready
to go, right, It's just like, hey, look, we got
to get this negative energy away. Like I can't imagine
that there's any moves that are going to be made
before the trade deadline. I can't imagine because we'll talk
about all this stuff throughout the show. But getting the
next GM is a critical thing. You don't do it
(05:25):
in the middle of the season.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
So matt Riccardi, who's the assistant GM who's been here
for I think since twenty twenty two maybe, and Michael
Finley who's also the assistant GM, who's been here a
long time, they're co interim gms.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well they've already been here.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
So basically it's like, hey, put your hand on this
steering wheel because the guy who's driving is gone, but
just keep your hand on the.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Same they're right there.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Unless Usually what happens if like in the case of
the Dumont Natilson family. They're part of this big giant
corporation that runs casinos. So what they're gonna do is
they're going to hire an outside firm to start doing analysis.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Here are the candidates.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
And by the way, that's what Cuban did when he
landed on Nico. Cuban consulted with one of these firms.
It's pretty common in sports. If you don't have basketball
ties and bloodlines, you know, then that's what you do.
You do what any major corporation does. You bring in
an outside professional firm that specializes in sports consulting. Here
are the candidates. Here's who you should talk to because
(06:28):
this Patrick Dumont's been in this world for less than
two years, less than two years, and he's not here
every day. He's running casinos all over the world, it resorts,
so he's not equipped to just come in and go
all right, here's our next GM Like this is to her,
You said it right, This is basically what's happening is
not working. It feels catastrophic. There's tons of negative energy.
(06:51):
We have to do something to make our fans happy,
and it's pretty clear no fans want Nico Harrison here
so we'll eliminate that.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Hopefully it'll give us some oxygen to breathe.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
But they're not going to make any massive moves until
they have a new GM in place. It's crazy too,
because even if you say, all right, man, this trade
is the worst trade that's ever happened. We screwed and
torpedoed our own franchise, were cooked. Let's just rebuild. You're
gonna find out hard it's going to be to trade
ad or Kai if you want to do that, because
(07:22):
it's all gonna be basically almost impossible to trade Anthony Davis,
which then you go back to just eighteen months ago.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
We traded Luca for Anthony Davis. We traded the MVP
for a guy that now we won't be able to
get rid of. You know, what I really think is
going to happen. What I really think is going to
happen is the most telling thing of all of this,
about a guy who's like, all right, I'm taking a
deep breath, I'm going to exhale, and we're going to
(07:51):
figure out how to fix this thing. They have Cooper Flag, Okay,
that's a great place to start. They've got a lot
of good players, dealing with a lot of injuries right now.
If they didn't have all these injuries, I think that
they would be winning some games and it would be
a different environment. There would still be all the fire
Nico stuff and all that would be going on, but
it would feel different around the team. So they have injuries.
(08:15):
But the Anthony Davis thing, I don't know if you
guys remember last week. I thought Anthony Davis was playing
last weekend. I was pretty confident he was going to play.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Anthony Davis and Nico Harrison tried to get Anthony Davis
on the court this weekend against Washington, and Patrick Dumont
was one of the people, according to all accounts, saying,
hold on a second, we don't need to have a
repeat of what happened last year. And that's an indication
they had already made their decision. We're going in a
different direction.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Now.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
We have to figure out how to unroll that and
how to figure out but there's not going to be
any seismic moves about the next direction. We're eleven games
into a basketball season. What they're going to try to
do is get everybody healthy when they get healthy, and
as us, what they have because right now they just
had to eliminate all the negative energy that was permeating
(09:06):
around the team that losing exacerbated. Right, everyone already had
that negative energy for Nico. Now compound that with three
and eight.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I don't think this is going to get rid of
the negative energy. I think it's gonna get rid of
a lot of it. Just it's gonna get rid of
the fire Nico chance. But the reality that sets in
that you're trapped and you can't win with this team
the way it's constructed, I think is I think that's
gonna I think that's going to do some damage to
Let's do this. Let's coming up next. Let's turn our
(09:36):
attention to the way that they made the announcement. Let's
have KT do a dramatic reading of Patrick Dumont's letter
Benn Skin Show ninety seven point one the Eagle. Don't forget.
All week long, we're giving away nine inch nails tickets.
Be listening for your chance to win. We use that
iHeart app to talk back feature.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
But there's going to be a clue from something that
happened in the show, and then you'll have a chance
to win.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
So be listening all day long. The big story of
the day.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Nico Harrison, the general manager of the Dallas Mavericks, or
maybe he was just president of basketball operations, but he
has been relieved of his duties. All the wind was
blowing that direction. The maverickshow to a very bad three
and eight start almost one last night against Milwaukee in
an incredible game by Cooper Flagg, but the very end
(10:20):
controversial play, he falls down and they lose their chance
to win that one. But they've been competitive the last
couple games. They are playing better, but there's still three
and eight chants of fire, Nico raining down, and Nico
Harrison was fired or let go. This morning, Patrick Dumont
was in town for all of that, and as part
(10:41):
of that, he fired off a letter to the fans,
an open letter to the fans, and here with the
dramatic reading, is our own Kevin K. T.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Turner.
Speaker 6 (10:50):
Hello, is this thing on? I'd like to start this
announcement with a joke. Did you know the man who
invented the Ferris Wheel and the man who invented the
Merry go Round have never met? That's right, because they
travel in different circles. Okay, let's get down to business. Dear,
MAVs family, you have every right to demand a commitment
to success from us. No one associated with the Mavericks
(11:13):
organization is happy with the start of what we all
believed would be a promising season. I've made the decision
to part ways with general manager Nico Harrison. This decision
was critical to moving our franchise forward in a positive direction.
I understand the profound impact these difficult last several months
have had. Please know that I'm fully committed to the
(11:33):
success of the Mavericks. Thank you for your support, thank
you for holding us accountable, and thank you for your
passion and for your patience. You deserve transparency and a
team that reflects your spirit. Our goal is to return
winning basketball to Dallas and win championships. Our family is
committed to that mission and to continuing to invest in
(11:55):
Dallas and the Mavericks future.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Go MAVs. Thank you. Patrick Wow. I love the choice
of joke at the beginning. Yeah, I didn't know that.
I didn't read that in the letter.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah, man, this is uh, this is this is just
bad on every level. Look, it's a perfect storm of
terribleness that this happened where Niko had already been kind
of living in a political landscape and getting rid of
other voices in there that had power to where when
some casinos come in come, some casino owners come in
and buy this team and couldn't even pick a basketball
(12:31):
out of a police lineup. He's the only one with power,
with no checks and balances, and he he made this
trade without anybody being able to have any input to
stop it. And so I appreciate this move. It's the
right move. But you know, at the same time, it's
like he's like, I'm gonna do everything I can now.
I gotta go jump on a plane. I'll be back
in a month.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
It's like, it just is what it is.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
These guys are there, they're casino moguls, and they're some
of the richest people in the world, and they want
to build a big resort casino here. But I don't know, man,
the after effects of this are not going away anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Firing Nicos doesn't undo the trade. It just gets rid
of a lot of negative pr. Yeah, that's what it does.
It gets rid of negative pr. It's interesting.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Both McMahon and Stein had in their reports that before
the game, Mark Cuban and Rick Welts met with Patrick Dumont's. Now,
if you don't know who Rick Welts is, he's the
CEO of the team.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
He was brought in.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
A little bit after this time last year, sent was
still around. He was brought in basically to oversee, you know,
he the new arena. He did that for the Golden
State Warriors. He was the CEO for the Golden State
Warriors during the dynasty. So it has these relationships with
Clay and staff and the Warriors organization, which culturally is phenomenal.
(13:54):
He also worked in Phoenix with Steve Kerr and Steve Nash,
launched the WNBA. He invented All Star Weekend. Like there's
all these amazing things that Rick Welts is in the
Basketball Hall of Fame. He's a Hall of Famer. He
was retired. He was brought in to oversee the new
arena and the new thing that this family, the Dumont
(14:16):
family and the Addison family are doing. And he had
been on the job for I don't know, like a month,
and then Luca was traded and he was suddenly the
CEO during a public relations crisis.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It's not what he signed up for, but that's what happened.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
And so the report that Stein and McMahon had that
Patrick was in there meeting with Rick and meeting with
Mark and figuring out how they're going to do this
and what they're going to do next, which is also
lent credence to this idea that Dennis Lindsay, who works
for the Detroit Pistons right now, could possibly be brought in.
(14:52):
But one of the things that's interesting is whenever you
have you were talking about a political landscape, whenever you
have chaos, people who are savvy operatives, if you whatever
you want to call it, they either get power or
reassert their power. And Mark Cuban was stripped of all
his power when he sold the team. He's been public
(15:13):
about that. He didn't think he was doing that, That's
what happened. And so I would assume that they're going
to move forward in a new direction with a new
GM and all this stuff, and Cuban will not have
input on basketball operations. But I think it's good that
Patrick talked to Mark and talked to Rick, because who
else in this organization should he be talking to, right
(15:34):
That's it, man, those are the guys that are Rick
is a basketball lifer. He's been in the NBA since
the seventies. And you know, Mark has been here in Dallas,
knows his fan base for twenty five years or more.
So he's a good guy to talk to. But this
is going to be a process to figure out who
comes in here next.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yeah, And I just think Dumont's, you know, they're culpable
in this too. And I think it's very possible that
Fire and Nico Chance just turn in to sell the
team Chance, but they've got, they've bought it themselves a
little bit of time to to turn this around. Hopefully
they can't. All right, we're gonna take us in things.
Skin is tracking all right.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Coming up next, let's talk about when companies get too big,
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