DALLAS (105.3 The Fan) - Less than 24 hours after Mavs GM and president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson and the Mavs had reportedly "mutually agreed" to part ways, new information has surfaced detailing a much rockier exit for Nelson, which ended with his firing from the organization after a stalemate with owner Mark Cuban.
The Athletic's Tim Cato, who released the explosive story detailing the over-involvement of the Mavs director of quantitative research and development, Haralabos Voulgaris, released the report on Nelson's firing on Thursday morning.
Per Cato: "As the Mavericks announced on Wednesday, just two days after The Athletic’s report about the friction in the Dallas front office that Cuban had publicly called “total bullshit,” Nelson is out. While the organization said in its release that Nelson and the Mavericks had “mutually agreed to part ways,” a source close to the situation said Nelson was fired on Sunday."
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Nelson, who had spent 24 years with the organization, was reportedly concerned with Voulgaris and his continued growing influence into the decision-making of the franchise, which in many cases were aimed to supersede the authority of Nelson himself.
In fact, the issues between Nelson and Voulgaris were so severe, according to the report, that rival GM's often expressed concerns with confusion regarding trade deals with the team, citing that the two would give different accounts of the team's wishes.
Mark Cuban denied those reports as well.
“At multiple levels of the front office, multiple people have ongoing conversations,” Cuban told Cato and The Athletic. “Scouts, assistant general managers, anybody and everybody. Player development people, everybody (has) conversations with people in other organizations to get information and find out what they’re up to, just like they have conversations with Donnie."
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“We have people top to bottom with other teams and other teams have conversations with us. We take input and that goes into all of the final decision-making. But that’s no different than (any other) team. … And no one has any more influence because it comes down to us agreeing on it. Or me agreeing on it. That’s just how it works. And only Donnie initiated trades.”
After letting Nelson go, the Mavericks' search for their new GM and president of basketball operations began with the hiring of a search firm to help aid in the process.
One candidate that has emerged as a possible replacement for Nelson is former Mavs player Michael Finley, who currently holds the position of Vice President of Basketball Operations within the organization.
The Mavs will have to find that replacement soon, with franchise cornerstone Luka Doncic becoming eligible to sign the super max rookie extension on August 6, the NBA draft coming on July 29, and free agency officially opening on August 2.
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