Mavs GM Harrison stays guarded on NBA probe, Irving, Doncic

DALLAS (AP) —Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison said he didn’texpect the trade for Kyrie Irving to spark a playoff run the wayhis first blockbuster move did a year earlier.

Missing thepostseason completely started the clock early for the Mavs in theirattempt to re-sign Irving in free agency and see how the pairingwith fellow All-Star Luka Doncic looks long-term.

The exitinterview with Irving was Monday, the day after the season endedunder thecloud of an NBA investigation.The league announced the probe after Irving didn’t play and Doncicwas limited to the first quarter when Dallas still had a chance tomake the play-in tournament with two games remaining.

Irving andDoncic both sat for a meaningless season finale afteraloss to Chicago in the game inquestioneliminated the Mavs a season after they went tothe Western Conference finals.

Harrison saidTuesday he didn’t know much about the NBA’s investigation andwouldn’t comment further. The 0-2 finish by Dallas put the club inthe best position possible to keep a first-round pick thatotherwise will go to the New York Knicks from Dallas’ 2019 tradefor Kristaps Porzingis.

Thesecond-year GM wasn’t much more enlightening on the topics ofIrving’s future and the mindset of Doncic, who openly expressed hisfrustration with a losing season and said off-court issues weretaking away his joy for the game.

“Had a greatconversation,” Harrison said of his postseason meeting with Irving,an enigmatic eight-time All-Star acquired in February after tellingBrooklyn he wanted to be traded. The move ended a drama-filledstint with the Nets.

“I think thethings that he said along the way about how he feels here, how hefeels appreciated, how he feels accepted and allowed to behimself,” Harrison said. “I think those are the things that he’ssaid kind of consistently, and that’s what gives me the optimismthat he wants to be here.”

Doncic saidhe didn’t agree with, but understood, the decision to sit Irvingand four other regulars on the night he played before coming out afew seconds into the second quarter of a 115-112 loss to the Bulls,when a rag-tag bunch of reserves couldn’t hold an 11-point lead inthe fourth quarter.

The24-year-old said in his season-ending interview he was happy inDallas, and Harrison said he didn’t go to sleep at night worriedabout Doncic’s future because the four-time All-Star has threeyears left before a player option kicks in on the $215 millionrookie supermax contract he signed two years ago.

Still,there’s the question of keeping Doncic happy in Dallas with plentyof recent scenarios around the league of unhappy superstars forcingtheir way out.

“I don’t knowwhat keeping Luka happy here means,” Harrison said. “If you win,then I’m assuming he’s going to be happy. If we win and he’s nothappy, then I wouldn’t know how to keep him happy. So I think thegoal is to win. I’m assuming that works. It will work for me.”

Before the2022 trade deadline, Harrison sent Porzingis to Washington in adeal that brought Spencer Dinwiddie to Dallas. Dinwiddie was animportant piece of the run to the West finals, but he went to theNets along with defensive ace Dorian Finney-Smith in the deal forIrving.

Harrison saidthe difference between the outcomes in the two trades was the Mavswere already on a roll when they made the move last year. Thisyear, a team that couldn’t find the same defensive formula got evenworse on that end without Finney-Smith, and never foundtraction.

Doncic andIrving were 5-11 together, with each missing multiple games becauseof injuries. After winning their first two games with Irving, theMavs went 7-18 the rest of the way.

“I didn’tknow if this would be like a magic pill. I don’t think I had anyvisions of that,” Harrison said. “But I figured it couldn’t beworse than what it was. I also looked at it as a long-term play,not a short-term play.”

That part isnext for Harrison and owner Mark Cuban.