Nico Harrison should be embarrassed after letting Rob Pelinka bully him into all-time trade heist

The entire sports world was shaken up in a way nobody could've expected on Saturday night, when the Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Doncic, a 25-year-old who has made five straight All-NBA First Teams and just led the organization to an NBA Finals berth last season, to the Los Angeles Lakers, in a deal that brought Anthony Davis to Dallas.

Trading Doncic in a package that did not include a player like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is inexplicable in its own right, but trading Doncic for the return Dallas wound up getting should have Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison's seat piping hot.

The Mavericks traded Doncic and, in return, received Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round pick. Davis is a great player, and if their goal was to become a defensive powerhouse, they could not have done much better than him. He also happens to be six years older than Doncic and just as injury-prone, if not more so.

Even with the concerns that come with a player like Davis as the headliner, this deal really falls apart with the fact that it was really just Davis who came back to Dallas. Max Christie is a decent rotational piece but nothing more, and they didn't even get two first-round picks. It felt as if the Mavericks left a ton of value on the table, with the Lakers still having guys like Austin Reaves, recent first-round pick Dalton Knecht, and another first-round pick at their disposal.

As it turns out, Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka wound up shedding what originally was a bigger package down to what Dallas wound up accepting on Saturday night. Kirk Goldsberry of The Ringer laid out how the negotiations went down, and let's just say it makes Harrison look even worse than he already does.

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Somehow, Luka Doncic trade looks even worse than it should have been

"One of my sources inside the Lakers was indicating that the deal was bigger... there were two firsts, and there was Dalton Knecht, and the deal got whittled down. I think Rob Pelinka was able to convince the Dallas Mavericks that Luka is a lot of risk... this was a weeks-long process, and Dallas started it. This fell in Rob Pelinka's lap, and then he was able to reduce the outward Lakers assets," Goldsberry said.

Had the Mavericks gotten pretty much any LeBron James-less asset that they could have from the Lakers alongside Davis in exchange for Doncic, it still would have been a bad deal, but, at the very least, Dallas would've maximized its potential return in a trade that netted the team a player that the organization clearly coveted.

Getting an extra first-round pick, Knecht, and Reaves would have given the Mavericks more assets to keep around or flip for other pieces who might fit better in what they hope results in at least one championship. Instead, Harrison, somehow, allowed Pelinka to negotiate him down to the deal that eventually was made despite not even reaching out to him to begin with.

Doncic did not demand a trade. The Mavericks had no reason to rush this. They had the most valuable asset, and instead of shopping him around or at least getting all that the Lakers could conceivably offer, they wound up settling on Davis and very little else.

Why didn't Harrison simply turn around and point out that Davis is six years older than Doncic, not as good as Doncic, and has just one season of 70+ regular season games played in the last six entering the 2024-25 campaign? Sure, there are risks with Doncic, but Davis isn't exactly a risk-free player, and the Lakers barely had to attach anything on top of him to get this across the finish line.

Had Harrison stood firm on his ask, there's virtually no shot that Pelinka would've said no. He would not have turned down an opportunity to acquire a generational 25-year-old who is about to hit his prime, even if it meant parting with Knecht and/or an extra first-round pick.

Everything about this trade is bad for the Mavericks, and knowing that they could have gotten more if Harrison didn't simply give in to Pelinka is infuriating. Harrison better have a plan to get this Mavericks team over the top sooner rather than later - his job likely depends on it.