When Nico Harrison breaks down the season the Mavericks just had – and more importantly game-plans for the future – he has a clear vision of what’s needed for this team.
Keep them together. And keep them growing.
The demands of the general manager have changed in one relatively short year. Last summer, he was trying to get a lottery team back on track.
This year, he’s got a team that reached the NBA Finals and has a lot fewer holes to plug than the one he had last summer.
“Our core, I don’t see much changing out of that, but we’re always going to try to get better,” Harrison said Friday. “That’s just the nature of our job.
“But it’s one thing if you try to get a little bit better, tinker around the edges. Or are you trying to massively overhaul. When you don’t make the playoffs, like last year, you’re a little more desperate. When you go to the Finals, now it’s like how can we get 10 to 15 percent better. I don’t think it’s a major swing.”
Building and improving from within. That’s the strategy after the Mavericks rolled through the Western Conference playoffs and into the Finals, where they ran into a hotter Boston Celtics team that was playing its best. And it showed in a 4-1 Finals series win.
The Mavericks came out of that run as proud as they could be of a season when they overachieved. But also knowing that the experience of the past two months is only a foundation for the future.
That’s why everybody improving 10 to 15 percent is at the heart of Harrison’s offseason game plan, which he shared with reporters in his end-of-season news conference.
“We’re proud of the way this season went,” Harrison said. “We’re committed to building a winning organization that has championship aspirations. I really felt like we grew.
“We really want everybody to come back 10 to 15 percent better – mind, body, spirit. I think if we do that, we’re going to be proud of the results for the next year. If you look at our top seven, eight players that played the biggest minutes, I don’t see anything happening with that.”
All of those players are under contract for next season except for Derrick Jones Jr., who Harrison addressed.
The swingman had a breakthrough season on both ends of the court and will be due a hefty raise from the $2 million he made last season
“I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Harrison said of re-signing Jones. “But he’s priority 1-A (and) 1-B. I think he fits in with our team. He loves it here. We have to figure out the dynamics to get him to stay. But yeah, that’s a priority. We’ll do what we have to do to get it done.”
Harrison touched on a plethora of subjects during his 20-plus minute interview session. Here are the highlights:
Question: Improving by 10 or 15 percent is easier for some players than others. How does somebody like Luka Dončić improve that much?
Harrison: “Easy, I think. We’re not where we’re at without Luka. That’s important to point out. And we also won’t be able to get where we want to go without the best version of Luka. You look at a guy that after Game 3 (in the Finals), he had the world on his neck. It was crazy the amount of scrutiny he had to face. And for him to focus in and do what he did in Game 4, I think it just shows the character of him and willing(ness) to fight through adversity. And I think he’s going to continue to get better. He’s 25 years old. So I think just going through the Finals and him seeing what he needs to do to be at his best in the Finals after a grueling end of the year and three tough matchups (to start the playoffs), I think you’re going to see the best version of him.”
Question: So, how much was Luka hurting in the playoffs and what’s his summer look like on the international stage?
Harrison: “He was hurting, but he’s a warrior. He’s going to fight through all those injuries. That’s just who he is. But multiple injuries throughout his body. That’s evident. You can see (from) the way he’s walking.
“In terms of playing for the national team, I think that’s probably one of his biggest joys so I think as long as he can walk, he’s probably going to go out there and play for them.”
Question: What’s next for Dereck Lively II?
Harrison: “D-Live, he improved right before our eyes. From the first part of the season all the way through to the playoffs. He’s continued to improve. I think the sky’s the limit. We got a good one in him. All-defensive player, all-star type guy. Who knows when his timeline will happen, but he’s well on his way to being a special player.
“He needs to rest. Michael Finley (Harrison’s right-hand man) pointed out to me my first year – they always talk about the rookie wall. It’s not that rookies hit a wall. They go from college straight to workouts for the NBA combine. They actually don’t rest. A rookie like him, went straight from college to workouts . . . they go through their whole first year and don’t rest and then you take him playing huge minutes all the way into the Finals. So the first thing for him is rest. But his maturation, his resiliency. He’s going to get better.”
Question: What about his three-point shooting?
Harrison: “He’s not going to be a pick-and-pop guy. He has the skill to do it, but for our team, that’s not what we’re going to ask him to do. He’s really good in the short-roll, he can pass to both sides of the floor. He’s just going to get better. I think there’s a lot of room for him to grow, and he’ll do it.”
Question: What about assistant coaches Sean Sweeney and Jared Dudley, both of whom have been connected with other coaching jobs around the league?
Harrison: “We love both of them, they’ve been valuable to getting us where we’re at, but at the same time, it’s about people. Our goal is to develop players and staff. If opportunities present themselves, we’re going to support them. But they know how much we want them back. You can’t hamstring players or staff from growing. So we’re going to support them, but we do want them back and we’re hopeful that they’ll be back.”
Question: How did the long playoff run impact the front office, as well as the players?
Harrison: “We were really in the playoffs since March 7. We were fighting just to get into the playoffs and not be in the play-in. And then you have that grind from March 7 and then we had three really tough series – we didn’t have the same juice in the Finals that we did in the first few rounds. Give those guys (the Celtics) credit. They’ve had to go through their trials and tribulations and they were the better team, for sure.
“When you’ve played this long, it wears on everybody. Even though you’re winning, it’s still a grind. So people need to take time off, fill their cup back up and get mentally prepared for a long season.”
Question: What kind of learning experience was this playoff run for P.J. Washington, who had never been to the playoffs before?
Harrison: “To get to where we were, we relied on four players who had little to no playoff experience. Lively, (Daniel) Gafford, Derrick Jones and P.J. Those four players played huge minutes for us and had little to no playoff experience. So how do they come back and incorporate that in their game from the start. I think that’s going to be huge.
“P.J. specifically, I think he can add a few more points a game, taking the ball off the rim, pushing it, posting up smaller players, shooting a little higher percentage from the three-point line, penetrating when they run him off the line. So he can add a few more points. And he’s going to. He’s poised to continue to get better. But the experience all four of those players got in the playoffs is going to carry them into next season.
“The biggest thing is experience. Those four all will be better prepared. And the rest of the team being to the Finals and now knowing what it takes to get there and not just get there, but have enough energy to be at their best (is huge).”
X: @ESefko
