In June 2021, Mark Cuban hired Nico Harrison to be the Dallas Mavericks' next general manager, but according to ESPN's Tim MacMahon, it wasn't because Cuban trusted Harrison. MacMahon wrote that Cuban believed "Harrison wasn't qualified to be the primary decision-maker for the team's basketball operations."
So, why did the Mavericks hire Harrison in the first place?
MacMahon wrote that Cuban "privately insisted he never intended to give Harrison autonomy and hired him with the hopes that his relationships with players and agents would help the Mavs reverse their long-running trend of finishing as runner-ups in free agency.