Report: Mark Cuban reclaims influence with Mavericks front office

The Mavericks’ front office shakeup keeps getting louder, and now we have the most detailed look yet at what pushed Nico Harrison out the door.

ESPN’s Tim MacMahon spoke with more than a dozen people inside the organization and laid out a long-running power struggle that started the moment Mark Cuban sold controlling interest of the team.

Cuban hired Harrison in 2021, back when Cuban still had final say and the president of basketball operations title didn’t come with much pushback.

That changed when Miriam Adelson and Patrick Dumont took over in late 2023. Cuban kept a 27 percent stake, hoped to keep steering basketball decisions and quickly found out that was no longer the plan.

“Mark is a friend. I will consult him from time to time,” Dumont told his basketball ops group, according to MacMahon’s reporting. “But make no mistake. I am the governor of the team and I am making decisions.”

Clear Shift

People inside the building welcomed that shift. Harrison and coach Jason Kidd were often frustrated with what they viewed as Cuban’s unproductive meddling.

But per MacMahon, sources close to Cuban insist he never intended for Harrison to run the show and never believed the former Nike executive was fully equipped to do so.

When Harrison first arrived, Cuban still had sign-off power and brought in veteran executive Dennis Lindsey to help cover the gaps.

Once the sale went through and Lindsey left for Detroit, Harrison began reporting directly to Dumont. His message was simple: the front office would function better without Cuban’s fingerprints everywhere.

“Dude, I do not want to deal with Mark anymore. He is too much,” one source recalled Harrison saying, via MacMahon.

Harrison blamed Cuban for several major roster mistakes, including losing Jalen Brunson and trading for Christian Wood. The coaching staff agreed.

Harrison strengthened his case with strong deadline moves for P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford, and the Mavericks’ run to the Finals helped him take even more credit.

“Nico did a hell of a sales job,” one team official told ESPN. “Fool’s gold.”

But it did not last. Sources told ESPN that Harrison was telling Dumont what he wanted him to know, not what he needed to know.

Cuban, meanwhile, kept finding ways to get his message to ownership. And once the Mavericks won the lottery and Harrison’s roster began to crater, Cuban’s warnings carried more weight.

End of the Road

The final blow came when Harrison convinced Dumont to trade Luka Doncic. He made the case that committing to a projected $345 million deal would be a risky investment given conditioning concerns and recurring calf issues.

He also pushed to keep Cuban out of the loop, arguing a leak was guaranteed if Cuban found out.

Cuban responded publicly after the trade and continued pushing ownership to make a change. And when Dallas’ offense fell to near the bottom of the league — exactly what Cuban predicted would happen without more ball-handling — Dumont made his move.

Cuban’s relationship with ownership never turned sour, and he is now back inside the governor’s inner circle, alongside Kidd, Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi.

One source described Cuban’s role as “consultant” rather than decision-maker, but his mood says everything.

“He is walking around on air right now,” one Mavericks staffer told ESPN. “Cuban is floating in his Skechers.”