There was a shakeup in Dallas this week when it comes to the general manager position and not one person on the entire planet should be remotely surprised. On Tuesday, the Dallas Mavericks fired general manager Nico Harrison of Seattle, Washington and replaced him with co-interim general managers Michael Finley of Melrose Park, Illinois and Matt Riccardi of Plano, Texas.
The Mavericks decision should simply be a zero shock whatsoever. The reasoning is because of one trade Harrison made. The decision of sending Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers remains a head scratcher from a Mavericks perspective and a primary reason why the Mavericks fanbase reacted with complete outrage.
This week Harrison paid the price for his controversial decision this past winter. It also did not help that the Mavericks are the second worst team in the Western Conference with a record of three wins and nine losses out of the gate. The bottom line with Doncic, the Mavericks were a superpower in the NBA. Now they are not.
Who are the new Mavericks co-GMs? Riccardi played basketball at the University of Texas Tyler and he has been the Mavericks assistant general manager since 2023. Before then, Riccardi was the Mavericks’s senior director of professional personnel during the 2022-23 season. Riccardi was also with the Brooklyn Nets for 12 years. He was a team assistant, basketball operations coordinator, basketball operations manager, scout, senior manager of basketball operations, and director of scouting operations.
Finley, meanwhile voiced his displeasure of the Doncic deal at the time, and is now being promoted within the organization. He is the Mavericks vice-president of basketball operations.
As a player, Finley played nine seasons with the Mavericks from 1996 to 2005, and was a NBA All-Star twice (2000 and 2001). He averaged 19.8 points per game, 5.2 rebounds per game, 3.8 assists per game, and 1.2 steals per game. Finley had a field goal percentage of .446, three point percentage of .375, and a free throw percentage of .811.
