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“I don’t think there’s ever been quite a reversal of fortune in our league,” Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Welts, who has been part of the NBA for 47 years, told the Future of Everything in-person and live-stream audience. “You know, a lot of fans who maybe had decided not to renew their tickets called back and kind of apologized to their ticket person – what they had said to them when we made that trade and asked if perhaps those seats might be available again. It’s just been incredible at every level of our business.”
In a matter of a week, the Mavericks saw their public perception zoom up to full-scale optimism, which was a huge leap from where they were, which was somewhere south of subarctic relations with their fans. The change has been easy to spot, especially for those who work in the organization. CEO Rick Welts has seen the difference just walking around the office, through the ticket-selling department and even while out in public. “Our lives today have no resemblance to the way our lives were before last week,” Welts said, referring to the NBA draft lottery in which the Mavericks got lucky and received the No. 1 pick, who will be Duke sensation Cooper Flagg. “It’s really quite extraordinary. Just walking around town. Getting high-fives from the doormen at my apartment building when they were looking away when I’d walk by before.”
Sure enough, the memory of Luka Doncic fades a bit given the new order of things. “Season ticket holders who may not have come back to us in the initial renewal (process) now all of the sudden are like: maybe I want to be in American Airlines Center next year as well,” Welts said. “The excitement around this for our fans is just unbelievable. I can’t imagine a more dramatic change in fortune than what we’ve experienced.”
So while the prevailing wisdom might be that it’s better to be lucky than good, it doesn’t really matter how the Mavericks got to this point. They’re here. And they are ready to capitalize on their good fortune. “To look forward to, who knows, maybe the next 10 years of success for the Mavericks, it’s an unbelievably lucky thing, but I think we were due,” Welts said. “Sometimes when you have a 1.8 percent chance of something good happening to you, it happens.”
Rick Welts: I'm willing to bet you're talking to the only person who was in the room 40 years ago today. I was in charge of the draft lottery when I was at the NBA. So I've been doing conspiracy theory stories for the last 40 years. I'm happy that I was sitting down here and nowhere else.
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Rick Welts: 'The fun starts now. Honestly, there hasn't been a lot of fun around the Mavericks for the past three months'
You know what you're going to take. It's easy now, right? Rick Welts: Well, the fun starts now. Honestly, there hasn't been a lot of fun around the Mavericks for the past three months. So I think for everybody in the organization—from Patrick Damont to Nico Harrison to Coach Kidd to all of our staff—this has been a lot to carry. And to have this happen, it's unbelievable.
Ben Golliver: Mavericks CEO Rick Welts from draft lottery: "I'm the only person who was in this room and the room 40 years ago. I was in charge of the NBA draft lottery 40 years ago when Patrick Ewing won. I've been doing conspiracy theory stories ever since. This is very surreal, personally."
To Harrison’s left was Rick Welts. The CEO seemed loose. He’d spent decades in NBA front offices, which has provided decades of lessons in how to say the right things. So he did his best to say them. Welts discussed his optimism for the future. He mentioned that, while it might not look like it, Patrick Dumont played basketball as a child. (Because his boyhood love for a sport qualifies him to own and steward an NBA franchise?) Welts claimed that about 75 to 80 percent of Mavs season ticket holders have already renewed for next season. He outlined broad concepts for a new arena, which the team intends to have ready after its lease with the AAC expires in 2031. The team is looking to secure 30 to 50 acres of land within the Dallas city limits to build on. He made no mention of the former Texas Stadium site that it already owns in Irving.
Mavs were projected to lose more than $100 million before Luka Doncic trade
Welts knew he was stepping into a financial challenge in Dallas. The Mavericks had just spent at least $8 million to create Mavs TV while forgoing what would have $45 million in regional TV revenue. That $53 million loss was a big reason the Mavericks were projected to lose more than $100 million this season – and that was before the Doncic trade.
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“I can tell you today that between 75% and 80% of our season-ticket members have already renewed their tickets for next season,” Welts said. “That doesn’t mean there’s a segment of our fan base that doesn’t feel alienated right now. I think that we hear them. And it’s on us to win back that trust, and I’m very confident that’s exactly what we’re going to do by the way we conduct ourselves on and off the court every day going forward.”
Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison doubled down on his mantra of "defense wins championships," repeatedly using that saying as an explanation for his decision to trade Luka Doncic to the Lakers, a shocking blockbuster deal that outraged the Dallas fan base and has prompted frequent chants calling for Harrison's firing. Harrison, along with new Mavs CEO Rick Welts, held an hourlong session Tuesday morning with a select group of Dallas-based media in which the trade of Doncic, 26, for a package headlined by 32-year-old perennial All-Star power forward Anthony Davis dominated the discussion. "There's no regrets on the trade," said Harrison, whose only other media availability since the trade was a brief pregame session the following day in Cleveland. "Part of my job is to do the best thing for the Mavericks, not only today, but also in the future, and some of the decisions I'm going to make are going to be unpopular. That's my job, and I have to stand by it."
"Well, the beauty of Dallas is it is a passionate fan base," Harrison said. "For us to reach our goals, we need that fan base. And to be honest with you, every trade I've made since I've been here has not been regarded as a good trade, and so sometimes it takes time. When I traded for Kyrie, it was met with a lot of skepticism and it was graded as a terrible trade and you didn't see it right away, but eventually everyone agreed that that was a great trade. When I traded for [Gafford] and [Washington] again, it was like, 'Oh, he gave up way too much. These guys aren't going to help us.' Now that trade, you saw the evidence a lot sooner. So I think a lot of times trades take a little bit of time. "But our philosophy, like I said, going forward is defense wins championships and we're built on defense. And this trade cements us for that." Did Harrison not believe that the core of last season's Finals team, with Doncic as the centerpiece, could contend for a title? "I'll say this again: Defense wins championships," Harrison said.
Harrison gave up control of the Mavs' first-round picks from 2027 through 2030 while making that series of successful trades, as well as the sign-and-trade deal for forward Grant Williams that didn't work out well. He has said that he believes he built a team for a "three- to four-year time frame" to contend with titles, although injuries ruined the Mavs' hopes this season. "We believe in the move we made," Harrison said when asked how the logic of a time frame that ends as the team enters a stretch when it doesn't control its first-round picks is in the franchise's long-term best interests. "You obviously don't, and that's fine. You're entitled to your opinions, but we're excited. ... I think once we win, then that will change your mind."
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