What everyone is missing about Nico Harrison

I have seen so many posts about conspiracies popping up so I figured I'd write this post in hopes of explaining the move, as I think the conspiracies are a little to far out there.

I have spent the last several days listening to podcasts from anyone I can find talking about this trade and that led me to the DLLS Mavs podcast. On Monday they streamed a show and one of the hosts, Tim Cato, who is a beat writer for the Mavs, talked about the trade and gave some really important information that I haven't really seen come up anywhere else, that I think explains the trade and all of the weirdness behind it.

At around 20 minutes into the podcast he explains that there is a strong belief that Nico doesn't see himself as a GM past a few more years. This thought completely shades this trade in a different light.

There are 2 things that prevent a GM from doing a stupid move like this. One is the owner or whoever they report to, and the other is their reputation. For 99% of the people who become GMs, their reputation is everything because if they were to do what Harrison just did, and it doesn't work, they never sniff another GM job. When you realize that he doesn't even plan on being a GM past this title window, it's easy to guess that he doesn't give a damn what his reputation as a GM is. He doesn't need this job, or for this to be his profession.

As for the owner part of this, they are not basketball people. They are not like Mark Cuban or Steve Ballmer. They leave all basketball decisions to Nico. A lot of people made jokes about Cuban having "control of basketball operations" after he sold the team but I don't think that was some fake job title. I think he was truly part of the decision making at the time. When he was removed from the equation after the finals last year, it was all Nico's show to run.

Given all of that, I think the justification of this trade is super simple, he wanted to win a title with his close friend Anthony Davis.

That's it.

It's why he didn't shop Luka around or care about even getting more from the lakers, he doesn't give a shit past 2 or 3 more years so why care about an extra pick, or what year the pick is. Why care about what other teams can offer, if he only cares about Davis. Why care about what Luka can be for the org for the next 10 years? None of it matters to him. It's as simple as "AD is my guy, and I want to win with him, and i think we can do so in the next couple of seasons".

It's why he made the weird jokes at the press conference. I beleive he used the "Luka being out of shape/injury prone" excuse to get the OK from the oblivious owners(who were reportedly surprised by the reaction to the trade BTW) to make this trade for the simple reason that he is close with AD and he does not care what happens after the next few years as he will be gone no matter what happens.

Nico does not plan to be a basketball GM for more then the current title window, whether successful or not, and just wanted to try to win with his close friend AD.

(via reddit user dplath) (repost as has been removed before)