Can Mark Cuban Name a Better Duo Than Rick Carlisle and Donnie Nelson?
As stunning, awkward, and unsettling as it may have felt, the Dallas Mavericks needed a week like this. Even successful organizations need an occasional shock to the system, and this franchise could hardly have had a bigger one, with the twin departures of the best general manager and coach the team has ever had. General manager Donnie Nelson was fired by team owner Mark Cuban after 24 seasons with the Mavs. Coach Rick Carlisle resigned, probably in protest of Nelsons ouster, although he did not say that. The two of them, friends for four decades, are highly respected in NBA circles and unlikely to be out of work for long. Now team owner Mark Cuban can chart a new path with a historically important decision: the hiring of a new leadership team that will be expected to steer the Mavericks, with Slovenian prodigy Luka Doni already a perennial MVP candidate in the NBA at the age of 22, back into title contention. As Cuban rebuilds the front office, he should remember the importance of management structure. Although Cuban vehemently denies it, there appears to have been significant internal turmoil between the outgoing team leaders and Cubans bright and shiny new object, a former professional sports gambler named Haralabos Voulgaris who now works as a quantitative research analyst for the Mavs. According to an article published Monday in the Athletic, several members of the franchises basketball operations and coaching staffs viewed Voulgaris as having overstepped his authority. Voulgaris also appears to have important differences with Doni, perhaps the most important person in the organization. In one instance, Doni shouted curses at Voulgaris during a game because he believed the staffer had signaled for him to calm down. In another, Voulgaris was seen leaving the court before a game had ended, a signal hed given up on the team. No matter how much Cuban likes him, Voulgariss chances of leading the post-Nelson Mavericks probably evaporated in those two moments. Now Dallas has to hope that Doni will sign the five-year, $201.5-million supermax contract extension hell become eligible for in August. Doni is close with Nelson, but thats unlikely to persuade him to turn down life-changing money. On the other hand, if he signs the contract, Mavs fans should not assume that all is forgiven. The NBA is the one professional sports league in North America that understands that its about the players. Doni will sign the contract, but if he decides he doesnt like the Mavs direction, hell figure out a way to leave. Back to Carlisle and Nelson. Though the Mavericks won just one playoff series in the last decade, they did the hardest thing a franchise can do. Thats not just win, but win over a sustained period of time. In thirteen seasons together, Nelson and Carlisle led the team to the playoffs nine times and delivered one of the citys coolest sports moments by winning the 2011 NBA championship over the heavily favored Miami Heatles, led by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. The Mavs organizational stability was the bedrock for much of the teams success, most notably Nelsons draft-day trades that brought Dirk Nowitzki (who is returning to the organization temporarily to help Cuban with the new hires) to Dallas in 1998 and Doni to town in 2018. Having acquired one franchise player, then another, and consistently built winning teams around them makes Nelson one of the NBAs elite talent evaluators. In nineteen years as the president of basketball operations, Nelson walked the fine line between keeping the Mavericks in contention and intentionally tanking an entire season (or seasons) to facilitate a complete roster overhaul. Despite the disappointment of blowing early series leads against the Los Angeles Clippers in the last two postseasons, Nelson will leave Dallas in as strong a position as almost any other team to win future NBA titles, because of the simple fact that he acquired Doni. That he did this speaks volumes about Nelsons understanding of the things that win in the NBA. Parting ways with an executive as good as Nelson is the biggest gamble Cuban has taken since buying the team. And its unlikely that the Mavs transition from Dirk to Luka would have appeared so graceful without Carlisle as head coach. To watch Carlisle work his magic during Nowitzkis twilight years, when NBA talking heads predicted that rosters surrounding the German great with J.J. Barea and Devin Harris would make the team nosedive down the Western Conference standings, was a revelation. Nelson was one of the NBAs pioneersand he was better at it than almost anyoneat identifying and recruiting European talent. His decision to add an international flavor to his rosters didnt just make the Mavericks better. It played a role in the explosive growth and appeal of the NBA around the globe. That Nelson developed such a close working relationship with Carlislethats not always the norm in the NBAspeaks of their mutual respect. Carlisle was said to have clashed with Doni at times this season. In the statement he released Thursday to announce his resignation, Carlisle thanked Cuban, Nelson, former players Nowitzki and Jason Kidd, several members of the front office, and every player and assistant coach Ive ever had here.  Rick Carlisle statement to ESPN: pic.twitter.com/zdKA8sWa4Y  Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 17, 2021  That he didnt mention Doni by name will be seen as a signal that their relationship was less than perfect. Their disagreements could be seen playing out on the sideline at times during games, and its reasonable to believe that their differences were even more pronounced behind the scenes. Doni is a generational talent, but he walked onto an NBA court as a nineteen-year-old. No player that youngnot LeBron James, not Kobe Bryanthas ever been fully prepared for the grind of an NBA season. James didnt even make the playoffs until his third season in the league. Bryant did make the playoffs with the Lakers as an eighteen-year-old, but he did it riding in the child safety seat of a vehicle that had Shaquille ONeal behind the wheel. Doni may benefit from a new voice and a new point of view in roster construction. But its important to remember that hes a player who can be the Mavericks cornerstone for a decade of success. Whether that means winning championships is less clear. Cuban has hired a search firm to assist with his hiring of a new general manager, who presumably then will (with Cubans approval) hire a coach. He could stay in-house for both hires, promoting vice president of operations (and former player) Michael Finley to GM and promoting highly regarded assistant Jamahl Mosley to head coach. (Mosley appears to have a solid relationship with Doni.) Because of Doni, the Mavericks jobs could be among the NBAs most appealing openings for prospective coaches and executives. But the teams roster needs work, beginning with coming up with a productive role for center Kristaps Porzingis. Cuban fancies himself as both a sharp basketball executive and a business visionary at the cutting edge of innovation. NBA organizations are stacked with all kinds of front office and coaching talent, from former players to Ivy League whiz kids to video room grinders. If Cubans really, really lucky, he may find another duo as good as Donnie Nelson and Rick Carlisle.