My Plan Forward for The Dallas Mavericks

This week's death blow to the season – and maybe the entire regime – was felt by all.

Kyrie and fans, down and out - Getty

Then it comes to be that the soothing light
At the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way

This feels like rock bottom, right? Kyrie Irving tearing his ACL at a moment when the league was finally starting to appreciate his brilliance again is just the end of our fall from grace.

In the last five weeks, the Mavericks have fallen and fallen and fallen. They have hit the ground. They can’t fall lower.

So, yesterday, I spent hours thinking of the best way forward. I know that this plan is unlikely to be followed, partly because the people running the Mavericks do not have a clue right now and show no signs of finding one anytime soon.

But I have been asked what I would do to attempt to save basketball in DFW right now—and I am not allowed to use time travel to undo what has been done. If I were running my Mavericks, what is the best path to attempt to not lose every single last fan that they once had?

Then, on Tuesday’s edition of the Hardline, I unveiled my 10-point plan. Some of it is far-fetched, but all of it is very possible. They have ruined things badly and they seem to be intent on driving away their biggest loyalists already. They call me to fix it and here is my plan:

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My Plan To Begin To Climb Out Of This Demise

1. We must start today with a press conference and the firing of the GM.

Look, you wanted the tough answers and a path back. Here it is.

Nico Harrison must be out and it must happen today.

I realize that our opinion has really changed since we wondered if he was a genius, but so did O.J. Simpson’s public perception. It happens. You build up goodwill, and then you nuke it in an instant. I believe deep in my bones that this was the story of one man deciding to bet everything against the future of Luka Dončić. To me, if you work in personnel, there are certain things that disqualify you from holding an office that can make this decision on your own. Making that trade and advising those who don’t know basketball that this is the best path forward risks everything. And in my opinion, we can already see it is an absolute loss. It was handled poorly and still is, and I see a 0% chance of Nico Harrison ever regaining the trust of the customers of this franchise.

When an employee stands in the way of a business and all of its customers, there is only one choice left to make. I must change my GM—even if I approved of his decisions when they happened—immediately. We are looking for a GM and have an interim watching the phone for now.

2. When you fire the General Manager, then you are probably also firing the Head Coach who has been attached with him at the hip since Day 1.

Jason Kidd is likely going to be out at the end of the season, too. I will have the decency to wait and see what my next GM thinks and whether he wants Kidd as the coach. But as of this moment, I believe he is done at the end of the year. You may think that is crazy since we just extended him, but we have consistently done crazy things around here, so this is just another brick in that wall. I firmly believe that Kidd knew of and agreed with this decision on Dončić and, therefore, would call this an easy decision in reaction to that. If Kidd did not immediately reject it, his hands are tied by it. Nico is his guy, and this happened under his watch. Done and dusted. Kidd may finish the season, but interims at GM and HC can get us to Game 82.

3. We will be ending the season of all recovering players.

Daniel Gafford, Dereck Lively, Anthony Davis, and Jaden Hardy are all being shut down completely. We are done trying to put our best team on the floor in 2024-25. It is over. We are playing our healthy kids, getting these final 20 games over with, and calling it a year. Privately, we would not mind losing out to increase our odds in June. We want no more injuries to our assets, and we want Anthony Davis to get whatever surgery he needs to be fit for next fall’s camp.

4. We will be seeking an entire new training staff.

Hopefully, this is obvious to all involved that there have been way too many injuries and mistakes in recoveries and setbacks to feel good about the way this training room has been handled in the last 12 months. We are addressing this immediately, if not sooner.

These first four steps can be done right now. Today. Before dinner. Everything else is more our direction this summer.

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5. We are liquidating our assets over 30 this summer. That means trading Anthony Davis and Klay Thompson and the end of Kyrie Irving as a Maverick.

This may take some time, but I am publicly stating at my press conference later today (the one where I fire Nico Harrison) that our intent is to work with these guys and find a good home for them respectfully. The mistakes of the last few months necessitate a complete overhaul and change of direction. I regret upsetting their lives, but we will do right by them. Then, especially in the case of Anthony Davis, we are having a full auction for his services.

We will be looking for roughly the Rudy Gobert trade and the haul Utah received for that player who cannot really hold Anthony Davis’ jock.

The Jazz received:

• Malik Beasley, Patrick Beverley, Jarred Vanderbil, Leandro Bolmaro, Walker Kessler

• The Timberwolves' 2023 first-round pick, The Timberwolves' 2025 first-round pick, The Timberwolves' 2027 first-round pick, The Timberwolves' 2029 first-round pick (top-five protected), The right to swap first-rounders with Minnesota in 2026

I will settle for just the picks. Four first rounders and another pick swap. Done. We will definitely take much less for Klay Thompson just to get him out of here. Then, we will see what Kyrie wants to do. I think we can opt-in for next season and then we allow him to recover, only to trade him by the deadline next year to a nice and competitive home. Or, if he wants to move this summer, he can. We will do right by Kyrie.

6. We will be building around Dereck Lively, Max Christie, and a few others who are very young. We believe those two are starters on our next playoff team, but it might be a few years before we get there.

7. Additionally, I would love to extend PJ Washington to be my leader to the future if he wants. If he would rather be moved, he will be accommodated. Everyone else on this roster can be had for the correct price between now and next February’s deadline. We are starting over.

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Finally, we have a series of fan-adjacent items to add to our “to do” list and they will all be implemented immediately. These could actually be the most far-fetched:

8. We are canceling our ticket increase and actually reducing all season tickets next year by 25% as an admission that we handled this very poorly. We understand if you want to cancel, but we are rewarding those who stay with us because we know we owe you for your loyalty and that we aren’t going to contend for a bit. We are also giving you a program to trade in your Luka Dončić gear for new Mavericks pieces whenever you choose to do so. Additionally, we want everyone to have a complimentary streaming subscription to our televised games through the end of the 2025-26 season. That is a lot of customer incentives, and we hope they begin to mend fences.

9. We are completely funding our new arena and not asking you the taxpayer for anything. Sometimes when you are worth $32 billion, you can buy goodwill. We are buying it by paying for our arena with our wallets.

10. We are publicly apologizing to Luka Dončić in several different ways for the way this franchise (and this front office) chose to handle his dismissal and for our decision to publicly leak personal information about him. We must also publicly ask for his forgiveness and attempt to make things right.

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So there it is. I think if we did those things, Mavericks basketball would and should still feel the damage done, but the path to a fresh start is possible. It will take years to fix this, but I think that is better than decades.

The path they are currently on – one where they keep those poor decision-makers in power, continue to treat the fan base poorly, one where they build around aging players who have injury histories that do not project well, and one where they barely have remaining draft assets – is a great way to cost your franchise decades.

If you want to hear that segment in full, here it is.

Ok, let me have it. What do you think?