Travis Hunter is done for the season.
The Dallas Mavericks fired GM Nico Harrison on Tuesday.

Nico Harrison became a pariah in Dallas the very second it was announced he agreed to trade the Mavericks' beloved young superstar Luka Doncic in a secretive February deal. However, his firing from the team Tuesday wasn't necessarily imminent after the widely panned move.

Winning heals all, and that's where Harrison had hope of surviving the onslaught of backlash that came his way after the deal. Sure, the fans would still miss Doncic. But the player they got in return, Anthony Davis, seemed like a good fit on a team with a backcourt of Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson, and front-court players like P.J. Washington, Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford. This was a team that could still make a playoff push.

And that's where things went all wrong for Harrison.

WHIFFS: 5 moves that got Harrison fired

They say you can make your own luck, but the Mavericks trading Doncic had the opposite effect. Almost as if the basketball gods were refusing to reward them for such a bone-headed decision. Davis tantalized the fanbase with a monster first half in his debut... then he left in the third quarter with a groin injury that kept him out the next six weeks. In the time he was out, Lively was still recovering from an ankle fracture, Irving went down with a torn ACL, Gafford suffered a knee sprain and Washington missed time with a sprained ankle.

The injuries kept piling up and the team spiraled to a 39-43 finish and play-in tournament exit. The Mavericks haven't recovered since, even after surprisingly landing the No. 1 pick and drafting Cooper Flagg.

WAVE THE FLAGG: Cooper's mom shared tweet calling for Harrison's firing

With Irving still out and Davis now dealing with a calf injury that's kept him out the last six games, Dallas is off to a disastrous 3-8 start to the season. That kind of losing only intensified fans' chants for Harrison to be fired; chants that likely would've died with better health and better results. Instead, Harrison was dealt the worst chain of events possible after pulling off a trade like that. And it cost him his job. You might almost feel bad for him... if the trade wasn't such a short-sighted move to begin with.

Evaluating the Travis Hunter trade

With Travis Hunter out for the season after undergoing knee surgery, it's a good time to revisit that trade between the Jaguars and Browns that allowed Jacksonville to move up to draft Hunter.

The Jags gave up the fifth and 36th overall picks in the 2025 draft, along with a 2026 first rounder and a swap of fourth rounders for the right to land Hunter and a 2025 sixth-rounder. So far, that deal is looking like a win for Cleveland, wrote FTW's Christian D'Andrea, but it's not a complete miss for the Jaguars:

"This doesn't mean the Hunter trade was a bad deal for Jacksonville. We were just beginning to see what he was capable of before disaster struck. Fitting a truly unique two-way player like him was always going to be a challenge for any NFL team, and right as Coen seemed to be figuring it out he was forced back to the drawing board. But between his first 100-yard receiving performance and a 68.3 passer rating allowed in modest defensive reps (162 snaps, 18 targets), it's clear his superstar potential carried over from the NCAA ranks."

Here's more from Christian on who's winning that trade.

Quick hits: Daron Payne has proof ... new Toy Story ... and more

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  • The Heisman Trophy race going into Week 12 certainly appears to be a two-man race based on updated award odds.

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This article originally appeared on For The Win: Nico Harrison made a bad trade. He also had incredibly bad luck.

Reporting by Prince J. Grimes, For The Win / For The Win

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