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Mark Cuban on the Luka Doncic trade: "I talked to Patrick (Dumont) about it, you could just tell that Nico just shit on Luka. because some of the stuff that Patrick was telling me was not true. “Yeah. And kudos to (Michael Finley) for really trying to stand up and block it.”
Mark Cuban: “I mean, like, me going to Patrick: ‘Okay, Patrick, what’s going on?’ “He’s going to give you a report, right? Every two weeks, you get a report, and you sit down. Then, ‘Oh, yeah, I want you to talk more with Nico. Get down there with Nico.’ “And then, obviously, Nico is talking trash behind the scenes. But again, we’re winning. I don’t want to create a problem when things are going well. “And if we had been losing, I probably would have stepped forward and said, ‘Look, this is not working the way it is right now. Here’s what we need to do.’ “But I didn’t want to screw it up.”
Interviewer: “So, when you say ‘talking trash behind the scenes,’ like politically maneuvering? Going to maybe Patrick and saying, ‘Hey, I’m the guy doing this, not Mark’?” Mark Cuban: “Absolutely.” Interviewer: “What is he doing to you? What is he saying? How do you find out about—” Mark Cuban: “Like, ‘Oh, I did the Kyrie deal. He didn’t do the Kyrie deal.’ “Right. Yeah, he might have talked to the general manager, but I’m the one that made the decision. I talked to the agent. I talked to the other players. I was there to meet him, right?"
Mark Cuban: "Masai and Nico are a lot alike, but they're different in the important ways. Nico wanted all his people in there, and you saw how many people he got rid of and who he got rid of. Masai's a lot of the same way. But Nico didn't really know what he was doing. I hired him to work for me, right, not to run the the the basketball operations."
Jake Fischer: I’m told Mavericks executive Matt Riccardi is also departing the organization. Riccardi, who served as Dallas’ co-general manager this season in the wake of Nico Harrison’s exit, was the runner-up to Masai Ujiri in Patrick Dumont’s process to find a new president of basketball operations.
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Sources said that Kidd had expressed a desire to be promoted to president of basketball operations after general manager Nico Harrison was fired in November, but Dumont informed Kidd months ago that he wouldn't be considered for the front office. Kidd was kept out of the loop in the process that resulted in Ujiri's hiring, sources said.
Marc Stein: It was announced earlier today that Matt Riccardi, Dallas' co-interim GM alongside Michael Finley since Nico Harrison's November ouster, will represent the Mavericks in Sunday's lottery in the off-camera drawing room in Chicago ... as planned before Masai Ujiri's hiring. Just reconfirmed for @DLLS_Sports that is still the case: Mavericks legend Rolando Blackman will be on stage and Riccardi will be off stage ... reprising their same roles from the Cooper Flagg lottery last May.
Carmelo Anthony shouts out Nico Harrison for Cooper Flagg winning ROY 💀 "Shout out to Nico Harrison for seeing this right here. For understanding his vision. Whatever happened or how it happened, Dallas got something back. They got the #1 pick and a rookie who led the squad in PTS, REB, AST, and STL. MJ is the only person to do that so when you talk about Cooper's ceiling as a young face of the league. It's Cooper Flagg"
Carmelo Anthony shouts out Nico Harrison for Cooper Flagg winning ROY 💀
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) April 27, 2026
"Shout out to Nico Harrison for seeing this right here. For understanding his vision. Whatever happened or how it happened, Dallas got something back. They got the #1 pick and a rookie who led the squad in… pic.twitter.com/Bg9qyrANsv
Anthony Davis: So when Rich said I was traded to Dallas, I was like the f*ck out of here. I saidwho the f*ck they gonna trade me for? Luka Doncic? I was just saying like who else can you trade me for on that team? Mind you, the Mavs just went to the finals. And it was never no discussion about like man, we might get AD out of here or… it was nothing. And he was like, “They traded you for Luka.” I'm like "Rich, shut the hell up. What? Like, shut what do you want?" I'm really thinking he's just playing. And he was like, "Man, I swear." And at the time, like, Nico Harrison is calling me. So, I'm like, "All right, Rich, I'mma call you back. Let me see what Nico… And I'm like, "Rich, I'mma call you back." Hello. Yeah, ‘I told you I was going to come get you one day. I wanted you.’ Huh? I'm still like, "All right, I know Rich and Nico like, y'all playing a joke." Like, this is foul play. Foul play. Got you. So, I'm like, "Huh?" So, I tell Nico, I didn't even speak. I said, "Yo, let me call you back." So now I'm like, "All right, I'm about to call Rob Pelinka back." So I call Rob back and I'm like, "Hello." He’s telling me all this stuff and like, basically, that I got traded for Luka, and some of the stuff he was saying, I didn't understand. ‘You know, when Bron's done, we want somebody to take over, we want to go younger, rebuild all this…’ And I'm like, "Huh?" I just didn't understand like what he was saying. But also too, like as I'm hearing this, I'm now like checked out. Like I hear you, but I'm not listening, right? And hang up. And my chef is right there in front of me. And I'm like, I just got traded to the Mavs. He starts laughing. ‘Yeah, big dog.’ So I'm like, you know what? I know this true. I go to X and go straight to Sham Charania’s page. Nothing, yeah they playing. So I'm walking out the kitchen, turning the corner to go up the stairs. Joel Embiid calls me. He’s in Philly, 12 o’clock. I don't answer, I’m going upstairs, then somebody else calls me, another player and I'm like wait hold on. So, I go back to Sham’s page and then there it is. Breaking news: Dallas Mavericks trade Luka Doncic. And I'm like, what? Run upstairs, say baby, I just got traded to Dallas. Shut up. But now this time I'm not shaking, but my heart is in my stomach. I'm like, yo, what the f*ck just happened? Right. And I show her and she's like, "What the hell?" But now I'm like, "All right, I'm running back outside. The first person I call my pop like, "Yo, pop, I just got traded."
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Internal candidates Matt Riccardi and Michael Finley — Dallas’ co-interim general managers since Nico Harrison’s firing in November — are under consideration to get the job. But the Mavericks, league sources said, also have ambitions of going big-game hunting. Team governor Patrick Dumont successfully persuaded NBA Hall of Famer Rick Welts to come out of retirement to run the Mavericks’ business side in one of his first major moves in charge of the team. The Athletic has reported since February that Dumont will target experienced, proven talent to run Dallas’ basketball side, as well.
Internal candidates Matt Riccardi and Michael Finley — Dallas’ co-interim general managers since Nico Harrison’s firing in November — are under consideration to get the job. But the Mavericks, league sources said, also have ambitions of going big-game hunting. Team governor Patrick Dumont successfully persuaded NBA Hall of Famer Rick Welts to come out of retirement to run the Mavericks’ business side in one of his first major moves in charge of the team. The Athletic has reported since February that Dumont will target experienced, proven talent to run Dallas’ basketball side, as well. But league insiders wonder if Dumont will be able to lure one of his top targets — and how he might pivot if he’s unsuccessful.
Tim MacMahon on Mark Cuban: He's he knows he's not buying the Mavs back. It's going to go the other way. Adelson and Dumont families can buy 20% more of Cuban shares, get them down to 7%, that's going to happen. Cuban's frustrated because he thought he was going to get back in at least the room in terms of you know basketball decision-making and Dumont listened to him as far as like the lobbying to fire Nico Harrison, and there was a meeting where Cuban was in the room and then Cuban realized damn I'm really not going to have any say. Like they really don't want to hear what I have to say. So Cuban's mad.
Kidd’s initial rhetorical question could have been meant for Mavsland in general, but, clearly, it mostly was directed at Cuban, whom Kidd said he phoned Tuesday after the Intersections podcast’s release. During the podcast, Cuban expressed regret for selling the franchise to the Miriam Adelson and Patrick Dumont families in Dec. 2023 and criticized general manager Nico Harrison’s Feb. 1, 2025 trade of Doncic. Then suddenly, briefly, he injected Kidd into the conversation. “That doesn’t justify it for our coach and our general manager to stand up and trade our best player.”