On a February afternoon in Dallas, the high temperature was 84 degrees. Perhaps the weather itself was joining in with the hundreds of fans that were hot against Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison.
We're now one week removed from the shocking news that Luka Doncic, the Mavericks' generationally talented franchise cornerstone was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for 31-year-old Anthony Davis.
Saturday afternoon marked the Mavericks’ first home game since the trade heard 'round the world, with newly acquired Davis making his team debut. Rumors spread this week of a planned protest to be held outside the American Airlines Center at noon prior to the 2 p.m. matinee tipoff against the Houston Rockets. We showed up early to see if anyone would follow through, and boy did they.
Oddly enough, not everyone was mad.
“It’s like, ‘Are you a Mavs fan or a Luka fan?’” asked a lady named Kendall. At an early brunch to fuel up for an afternoon of sports-rioting, she chimed in to tell us that she wasn’t bothered by the trade and she laughed at people she saw wearing Mavs jerseys to her church on the Sunday following the news.
But Kendall was likely in the minority around the stadium on Saturday. In Downtown, you could hear chants echoing from outside the arena in all directions.
“This Nico guy is a fall guy,” says a man walking swiftly in the opposite direction from the noise, as he’s held a half-drunk cappuccino in one hand while venting into a phone in the other. “You know he can’t just make a trade like that.”
He surely wasn’t talking to anyone outside the AAC where Harrison was public enemy No. 1. There were a couple hundred Mavs fans perched just in front of the Dirk Nowitzki statue, with most hoisting signs and letting out their feelings about the news. Swaths of media members flanked the group that got louder and louder each time the red light flicked on a TV camera.
The majority of the signs were either targeted against Harrison, or in favor of Doncic. One read “Judas. Brutus. Benedict. Nico.” Another spelled out “Nico” with: “Negligent, Incompetent, Corrupt, Oblivious.”
The chants alternated every minute or so. “Fi-re Ni-co” was a crowd favorite, as was “We-want-Ni-co” in a sort of medieval village shaming sort of way.
“Loy-al-ty” drew out many emotions from the protestors, as did “Lu-ka Ma-gic.”
But it wasn't all just just words. One fan held a life-sized cutout of Harrison with a clown nose affixed to it. Later, fans brought out a casket to lay before the Nowitzki statue, as papers were passed out with a QR code that took people to a Change.org petition to get rid of not only Harrison but the Mavericks' current ownership group, led by Miriam Adelson.
“I’m getting J6 vibes, boys,” said a teenager meeting up with his friends. They wore different iterations of a Doncic jersey with the Mavericks name and logo X-ed out in duct tape. “This is awesome.”
