THE DALLAS MAVERICKS, mired in the misery of a four-game losing streak amid the chaos that had overwhelmed the franchise for the past nine months, sat on the tarmac at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C.
It was bad enough that the Mavs had been blown out hours earlier in Memphis in a matchup between two teams in early-season tailspins. Now, the buses scheduled to transport the traveling party to the hotel were delayed by red tape.
After almost an hour, the first of the team's two buses arrived. Weary players boarded for the ride to the Four Seasons in Georgetown, arriving after 3 a.m. ET. They expected some good news the next day, which All-Star big man Anthony Davis and his personal medical team -- as well as former general manager Nico Harrison -- had targeted as his return date from a low-grade left calf strain.
Those plans changed the next afternoon, hours before tipoff against the Washington Wizards, when Mavs governor Patrick Dumont stepped in at the last minute to put Davis' return on hold, according to team sources.
Dumont acted on the advice of Mavs director of health and performance Johann Bilsborough, who had thrown up a late caution flag, concerned that Davis was at risk of aggravating the calf strain or sustaining a related catastrophic injury.
This marked the first time Dumont had directly involved himself in the Mavs' daily basketball operations since acquiring a majority stake in the team in December 2023.
It was also the most public and direct indication that the trust he had developed in Harrison, which was so strong last season that Dumont signed off on the most controversial trade in NBA history without seeking any other opinions, had completely disintegrated.
Davis' availability at the time was considered day-to-day. That description also applied to Harrison's job security.
Three days later, Dumont fired Harrison.
It was the culmination of the most tumultuous era in Mavericks history, fueled by competing egos, a controversial team sale, the trade of the most dynamic star in franchise history and a quiet but simmering power struggle between a former owner and the general manager he had hired.
In the aftermath, Dumont and his new basketball cabinet, which once again includes former majority owner Mark Cuban, are plotting to pivot to the future with 18-year-old Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 pick delivered to Dallas by unprecedented lottery luck, gifting the new ownership group a second chance to build a sustainable contender around a generational talent.
Multiple team sources said the Mavs, who are 4-11 and outside the playoff picture in the West, will also explore the trade market for Davis, the 10-time All-Star big man who was the headliner in the return of the Luka Doncic deal, as part of that process before this season's deadline.
For a fan base that still feels betrayed, so many questions linger in the wake of this self-inflicted saga, many of which center around the famous former majority owner.
Why wasn't Cuban given any more input than any other season-ticket holder in a franchise-rattling decision? And how much power will Cuban have moving forward as the Mavs try to get the franchise back on track?
Discussions with more than a dozen sources inside the organization reveal that two of the franchise's most powerful men, Cuban and Harrison, were vying for influence and the ear of the new, inexperienced owner Dumont: one man determined to prove his basketball acumen after finally being given freedom to run a team, the other desperate to get back in the game.
On the morning of Nov. 11, that simmering power struggle finally bubbled to a boil -- and everyone was burned.
Said one team source: "Mark's been trying a palace coup for months."
A HORDE OF reporters and television cameramen waited patiently for Cuban to wrap up his 3-point shooting routine on the American Airlines Center court, a pregame routine of his that was one of the perks of running the Mavericks.
This was the evening of Dec. 27, 2023, hours after the NBA had officially approved the sale of the franchise's majority share to the Adelson and Dumont families at a $3.5 billion valuation, more than a dozen times what Cuban had paid 23 years earlier. Cuban, still dripping with sweat and wearing shorts and a team-issued sleeveless T-shirt, was more than happy to discuss what he claimed were unique details of the deal.
"Nothing's really changed except my bank account," Cuban boasted to the media, crowded around him in a three-deep circle.
Cuban explained how the new owners, whose 11-figure wealth was built running the Las Vegas Sands casino corporation, would focus on the franchise's business interests, including eventually building a new arena as part of what would hopefully be Dallas' version of a Venetian-style resort.
Cuban, he said, had been relieved of the financial stress of funding an NBA contender as a mere "middle-class billionaire," and he proudly proclaimed he would continue to control the Mavs' basketball operations as part of the partnership in which he maintained a 27% ownership stake.
There wasn't any specific language regarding that authority in the official purchase agreement, Cuban acknowledged, but he was adamant that the plan was for him to continue to be the boss of all the Mavs' basketball matters even though Dumont would officially have "final say" as the franchise's governor.
"That's Cuban overselling himself because he always has a microphone in front of him," one team source told ESPN.
Minutes later, after divulging the intricacies of the deal, Cuban gathered the team's players, coaching staff and front office personnel in the locker room to deliver a similar message.
"Nothing's going to change," Cuban told them hours before they faced the Cleveland Cavaliers. "I'm still running basketball."
In the room, the news didn't land the way Cuban had intended.
Multiple sources found Cuban's comments to be disrespectful toward Harrison, who was in his third season as the Mavs' president of basketball operations and GM following a lengthy tenure as a Nike executive.
Across the organization, it was common knowledge that Harrison's freedom to function in those roles had ebbed and flowed based on when Cuban decided to grab the wheel. Now, in front of players and staff, Cuban had just dismissively minimized the power of the GM he had hired nearly three years prior.
For many people in the room, however, the prevailing takeaway from the meeting left them perplexed: Why in the world would people pay billions of dollars to buy the franchise but allow Cuban to run it?
Days later, Dumont made his first visit to Dallas since the sale. He held separate meetings with the franchise's business staff, basketball operations department and players.
In the latter two sessions, he was asked directly about Cuban's claim of maintaining basketball authority. Dumont's answer contradicted his new business partner.
"Mark is a friend. I will consult him from time to time," Dumont said, according to multiple people in the basketball operations meeting. "But make no mistake about this: I'm the governor of the team and I am making decisions."
The directive from Dumont was a relief to many, including Harrison and coach Jason Kidd, who were often frustrated by what they perceived as Cuban's frequently unproductive meddling in personnel decisions, sources inside the organization said.
It also created a power vacuum that Harrison pounced to fill.
And he did so, with aplomb.
A trip to the Finals that season, aided by a pair of trade-deadline deals that paid immediate dividends, provided Dumont enough evidence to put faith in Harrison's basketball brilliance.
TWO WEEKS LATER, before Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Dumont conducted the only news conference he has held since the ownership transfer. He was flanked by Harrison and then-Mavs CEO Cynt Marshall.
"Normally when teams change ownership, they bring their own people in," Harrison said. "Patrick and the Adelson family, they've adopted me as their own, so I really appreciate that. One of the things about Patrick and I, our conversations, we talk about leadership. We talk about investing in the community. We talk about culture. It's all the things that I believe in. It reminds me of my old days at Nike.
"I guess that's his corporate background."
He turned his head toward Dumont. Their eyes locked as big smiles broke out on their faces.
"Sounds great," Dumont said, grinning from ear to ear.
Unlike his predecessor, Dumont doesn't bask in the glare of the public spotlight. Cuban soaked up the fame that came with NBA ownership, parlaying his image as a bombastic businessman into a long-running role on ABC's Shark Tank that elevated his celebrity far beyond the sports world. By stark contrast, a Google search produced only one photograph of Dumont when news broke of the Mavs' sale.
The corporate world is the comfort zone for Dumont, who received an MBA from Columbia Business School before beginning his career in investment banking more than a quarter century ago. He has climbed the corporate ladder since joining Las Vegas Sands following his 2009 marriage to Sivan Ochshorn, the daughter of the corporation's owners Miriam and (since deceased) stepfather Sheldon Adelson, becoming the president and chief operating officer in 2021.
Harrison, who rose from field representative to vice president of North American basketball operations during his two decades at Nike, prioritized developing a relationship with Dumont after the franchise was purchased. Harrison connected with his new boss by speaking a corporate language of sorts, emphasizing the importance of establishing a clear chain of command by reporting directly to Dumont instead of through Cuban, which he had done for the previous two seasons. Harrison and Cuban both declined to comment for this story.
"Nico basically said, 'Dude, I don't want to deal with Mark anymore. He's too much,'" one team source said.
With a new direct line to his boss, and his former one out of the picture, Harrison accelerated the ice-out.
Harrison had once told Cuban that he was nicknamed "The Silent Assassin" at Nike because of his ability to quietly maneuver to get his way in business matters. Suddenly, Cuban believed that he was in Harrison's crosshairs.
"Immediately after the sale, Nico started really playing Dumont," another team source said. "He honed in. Then we went to the Finals, and Nico could do no wrong."
Cuban blamed Harrison, not Dumont, for his basketball exile, according to sources familiar with the dynamic.
As Harrison's power rose, Cuban privately claimed that the league office required the parties to remove a clause in the purchase agreement that ensured him the right to be invited and attend all basketball operations meetings, sources said. That clause, however, made no mention of Cuban having any authority over basketball operations.
In Cuban's mind, according to a source, he would have maintained control essentially because he would have been the smartest, most experienced man in the room.
"That's the most obvious instance of having my cake and eating it, too," a source involved in the process said. "How long have you known Mark Cuban? Did that seem out of character?"
As far as Cuban was concerned, according to sources familiar with his thinking, Harrison wasn't qualified to be the primary decision-maker for the team's basketball operations, despite hiring him in June 2021 to be the team's GM after the contentious firing of longtime Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson.
Even so, Cuban privately insisted that he never intended to give Harrison autonomy and hired him with the hopes that his relationships with players and agents would help the Mavs reverse their long-running trend of finishing as runners-up in free agency.
Cuban hired former Utah Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey as a senior advisor in summer 2023 -- a move suggested by Doncic's agent Bill Duffy and business manager Lara Beth Seager -- to help mask Harrison's perceived shortcomings as an inexperienced NBA executive.
Harrison blamed Cuban for what he believed were the Mavs' biggest personnel mistakes during his tenure, which came in summer 2022: allowing Jalen Brunson to get away in free agency and trading for Christian Wood, a player Kidd didn't want to coach and resented having on the roster. Several members of the coaching staff and front office also faulted Cuban for those moves.
Harrison was adamant in talks with Dumont that the basketball operations department would function much better without Cuban's constant interference, sources said. Dumont believed he had proof of concept after the Mavs' 2023-24 season took off following trade-deadline deals to acquire Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington, albeit only after the Washington Wizards allowed Kyle Kuzma to veto a deal in which Dallas would have given up a pair of first-round picks for him, forcing the Mavericks to pivot to other targets.
Dallas was 28-23 and in eighth place in the West -- two games out of fifth -- when Harrison's new additions joined the team. The Mavs had the league's best record (16-4) and top-ranked defense in the final 20 games of the regular season before their run through the West as a No. 5 seed.
That was all the ammunition Harrison needed to convince Dumont of his prowess as a personnel decision-maker.
"Nico did a hell of a sales job," a Mavs official said. "He took credit for everything that was done. When Patrick asked questions -- asked how we got Kyrie, how the draft happened, etc. -- [Harrison] said he was the guy. We got on a roll and went to the Finals. Fool's gold."
Dumont would occasionally ask Harrison to "keep Mark in the fold" regarding personnel discussions and decisions, sources said. Harrison would agree to do so before blowing it off. The contact at this point between Cuban and Dumont was minimal, given the team's success. Cuban and Harrison rarely spoke to each other.
"Nico built the moat and put up the fence and said, 'I got this!'" one source familiar with the dynamic between Harrison and Dumont said. "Clearly, that was the wrong strategy."
Harrison increasingly isolated himself, his direct line to Dumont a source of power. Sources throughout the franchise believed Harrison would tell Dumont what he wanted his boss to know, not necessarily everything that Dumont needed to know, especially as an NBA newcomer.
"The one guy in basketball ops who had a pipeline to Dumont wasn't giving him the straight scoop," one of the team sources said.
That's how Harrison positioned himself to persuade Dumont to sign off on the Doncic trade, a deal considered illogical by rival executives for a variety of reasons, from parting with a perennial MVP contender in his prime without any threat of a trade demand, to receiving what was widely perceived to be poor value in return.
Harrison built his case from a business perspective. Doncic would be eligible to sign a five-year, $345 million supermax contract extension in the summer. That deal would be an awful investment, Harrison told Dumont, pointing to Doncic's conditioning concerns, poor off-court habits and recurring calf strains, predicting that his body would break down.
Doncic's camp and Harrison had several disagreements regarding the recovery process from the calf strain that sidelined the superstar at the time, which the GM portrayed to Dumont as proof that Doncic was not fully committed to the Mavs.
Harrison also blamed the Mavs' five-game elimination to the Boston Celtics in the Finals on Doncic's defensive struggles. He pitched Dumont on his vision of building the league's best defense around Davis, who Harrison had been close with since Davis was a teen playing on the AAU circuit.
"Defense wins championships," Harrison said repeatedly in his few attempts to publicly explain the logic of the trade.
Harrison also convinced Dumont that the trade discussions had to be contained, minimizing the risk of it leaking to the media, which could have resulted in Duffy, Doncic's agent, using his leverage to kill the deal. Looping in Cuban would have likely led to a leak, Harrison told Dumont.
No one else knew. No one else had to know. Dumont bought it, and that was all that mattered.
"'In Nico we trust' -- too much at the end of the day," a source said, referencing an infamous line from Dumont's interview with The Dallas Morning News days after the trade. "That quote has come back to haunt [Dumont]."
DURING HALFTIME OF the Mavs' Nov. 10 game against the Milwaukee Bucks, the night before Harrison was fired, Dumont had welcomed an 18-year-old man wearing a gold Doncic Lakers jersey to sit next to him for several minutes. Nicholas Dickason approached Dumont at the urging of his father, he told The Athletic, to apologize for flipping him off during the season-opening loss to the San Antonio Spurs, the only previous game the governor had attended this regular season. During their cordial conversation, Dumont expressed remorse for the Doncic deal, Dickason said.
After the game, a surreal loss at home that featured the team blowing a 13-point fourth-quarter lead and deafening "Fire Nico!" chants during Mavericks free throws, Cuban made a beeline from his usual seat by the home bench to meet Dumont by his seat near midcourt on the other side of the American Airlines Center floor.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the court, Harrison stepped down the portable stairs by his seat and into the tunnel, the bitter power struggle that for years had gripped the Mavericks shifting in real time.
Harrison, who received death threats after the Doncic trade, never returned to his previous usual seat among the four reserved for Mavs' front office officials in the lower bowl opposite the team's bench. He stood in that midcourt tunnel during games the rest of last season, accompanied by security. He had those stairs rolled in before every game this season, allowing him to access and exit his new seat a few rows behind the home broadcast table without crossing paths with fans.
A few months after the trade that would ultimately doom his Mavericks tenure, Harrison and the team lucked into the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft. It was then, multiple team sources said, that Cuban's push to fire Harrison accelerated.
Harrison then managed to further enrage the fan base after the team drafted the consensus No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg in late June.
"Fortune favors the bold," Harrison said, a wink at a fan base not ready or willing to receive it. Weeks earlier, amid city-wide backlash that threatened the future viability of the franchise, Dumont had urged Harrison to undergo media training, hoping to create a message that would ease some of the self-inflicted wounds.
The lessons apparently didn't land.
A couple of days later, at Flagg's introductory news conference, Harrison said that he hoped fans were "starting to see my vision," angering the fans even more at a time when the luck of landing Flagg and the excitement of a future with him should've been celebrated.
Four months later, with the Mavs floundering in 14th place in the West amid predictable struggles and the fans' angst weighing heavily on the players, Dumont had seen enough.
The dynamic between Dumont and Cuban never became contentious, sources on both sides said. They had known each other for years, forming a friendship that served as the foundation of the franchise sale negotiations. Those same sources said Cuban reinforced his credibility with Dumont with criticism of Harrison's roster construction over the summer that quickly proved to be painfully accurate.
Cuban had warned Dumont that Dallas would have a dreadful offense due to a lack of off-dribble creators and shooting. Harrison downplayed those concerns. The Mavs rank second to last in the league in offense.
"I understand the profound impact these difficult last several months have had," Dumont wrote in a letter to the fans released that afternoon, vaguely referencing the Doncic trade in his only public comments this season. "Please know that I'm fully committed to the success of the Mavericks. Thank you for your support, thank you for holding us accountable, and thank you for your passion and for your patience. You deserve transparency and a team that reflects your spirit."
Cuban has strongly suggested replacing Harrison with Lindsey, now the second-ranking member of the East-leading Detroit Pistons' front office, sources said. Lindsey is likely to be considered during a comprehensive search process that will include external and internal candidates, but for the time being, Dumont has opted for a "GM by committee" approach.
That committee, which could still be in place through this season's trade deadline, met with Dumont to discuss potential strategic scenarios on the afternoon of Harrison's firing.
Assistant general managers Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi, recently promoted to interim co-GMs, were in the room. So was Kidd, who has as much influence as anyone in the organization after signing a contract extension during the preseason. Cuban was there, too, an indication of his return to the franchise's inner circle.
Cuban is giddy to be part of the small group that Dumont is relying on to educate him about NBA business and guide him through a turbulent time.
"He's walking around on air right now," a team source said. "Cuban's floating in his Skechers."
But Cuban isn't returning to his shot-caller status within the Mavs. Nor will he ever. As one source put it, Cuban sold that right.
"He's a consultant, not a decision-maker," another source said. "But he's at the table."
Still, nobody knows how long he'll stay there -- or how far his influence will reach.
Those decisions, according to a source briefed by Dumont, will be made by the person replacing the man he just fired.