Tough Night For Nico Harrison: The Mavs Lost To The Lakers At Home, Luka Dropped 45 And He Had To Listen To An Entire Arena Chant "FIRE NICO" All Night

Joe Murphy. Getty Images.

Aside from Luka making his return to Dallas, the other big storyline heading into DAL/LAL was, of course, Nico Harrison. Given that he's the man responsible for this whole situation, you can certainly understand why. Nico has basically become Public Enemy #1 ever since he let Rob Pelinka swindle the shit out of him while pulling off the heist of the century, so it's fair to say he's easily the most hated man in Texas as well as the Mavs fans around the world, so a night like tonight is what you could call the ultimate hot seat. It's not an accident that the team had to put out game conduct reminders on the jumbotron heading into the game

I will give him this. At least he showed up and took it on the chin. While I think he's a moron who has no idea what he's doing when it comes to his direction for the franchise, I can at least respect that he didn't skip this game. I bet deep down he wanted to, but you have to show up at a minimum. I also give him credit for being visible and not just watching in the back or something. Good on him for that as well.

Given the fact that the Lakers came away with the 112-97 win, that was the first blow. As long as you somehow win that game, for the moment, nothing else matters. Not how Luka played, not the trade, you can just focus on the win. Especially if AD played great. Unfortunately, the opposite happened. The Mavs scored only 40 points in the second half, AD went 5-13 (0-2) and was a -10 in his 33 minutes. 

Up next was the fact that Luka went absolutely nuts in his return

If you gave Nico Harrison truth serum while he watched this performance, do you think he'd finally admit that he made a mistake?

I mean, this was a textbook Luka masterclass right in his eyeball. As obvious a "fuck you" as you'll ever see on a basketball court from a player. Not only am I going to win on your floor but I'm going to make this the worst night of your life. Luka has his flaws, but the man is a killer when he's pissed. If his 3 ball is locked in like we saw tonight and he's motivated, good luck.

That was the second blow. At this point, the night couldn't get much worse for Nico, right? Wrong

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Again, I would LOVE to know what's going through his mind during this moment. You can tell he's just trying to wait it out, ignore it, and pretend like there aren't 18,000 people all chanting for him to be fired. It's so awkward that it almost makes me uncomfortable watching. It's almost like a car crash where you can't stop looking even though you know you shouldn't. 

Then I started to think, does Nico Harrison just have a humiliation kink? Think about it. All of this shit is self inflicted. Then, after the trade, all the Mavs have done is make things worse. That has to be on purpose right? We're not kink shaming in 2025, I'm just trying to understand the process here. Again, credit to him for taking it on the chin, but yikes.

Not that this was possible before tonight's festivities, but it's really hard to see how anyone could possibly bounce back from this. I'm not positive even winning a title will do it, and that's the highest achievement you can have! 

All in all, it was a pretty weird night in Dallas. We had Luka crying during his tribute, then the Mavs got out to an early lead despite Luka starting the game on fire, only for the Lakers to put their foot down and crush the Mavs like the Play In team they are (for the moment) while Luka went supernova and LeBron had an efficient 27. 

Surely, this is just how Nico drew it up!