Rick Welts has been the Mavericks’ CEO for 104 days. He’d been on the job 31 days when GM Nico Harrison shockingly traded face-of-the-franchise Luka Doncic.
Why, then, did Welts not only co-lead with Harrison Tuesday’s roundtable discussion with reporters, but also make eight-minute opening remarks?
It’s because Welts, 72 and a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, is the franchise’s public-facing leader and is the closest thing it’s had to a voice of reason during the catastrophic 73 days since Doncic was traded to the Lakers.
And with Dallas facing an unceremonious end to its season Wednesday in Sacramento, nine months after playing in the NBA Finals, Welts knew someone of Mavericks authority needed to address bigger-picture franchise concerns.
Primarily, fans, a topic about which fourth-year general manager Harrison at times Tuesday again showed tone-deafness.
“I can tell you today that between 75% and 80% of our season-ticket members have already renewed their tickets for next season,” Welts said.
“That doesn’t mean there’s a segment of our fan base that doesn’t feel alienated right now. I think that we hear them. And it’s on us to win back that trust, and I’m very confident that’s exactly what we’re going to do by the way we conduct ourselves on and off the court every day going forward.”
Granted, Harrison, not Welts, is in charge of the on-court product. Welts told The Dallas Morning News upon his hiring last December that he and Harrison would not have a reporting relationship. Both report to Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont.
Clearly, though, Harrison has fallen woefully short in public messaging and accountability. He’d been radio silent for more than two months.
Until Tuesday’s 57-minute roundtable with a small group of reporters – which, full disclosure, did not include me, but did include News colleague Mike Curtis – Harrison’s only comments about the Doncic trade occurred with The News shortly after midnight of Feb. 1 and a nine-minute news conference later that day in Cleveland.
On Tuesday, Harrison repeatedly reiterated that he traded Doncic for Anthony Davis because defense wins championships.
It certainly wasn’t Harrison’s doing when Davis suffered an adductor injury in his first game as a Maverick, or when Kyrie Irving tore the ACL in his left knee on March 3. But 73 days of silence — including after trading Quentin Grimes to Philadelphia, where Grimes averaged 21.9 points — was conspicuous amid understandable fan confusion and wrath.
On Tuesday, Harrison was asked about that silence. He said he and Welts have spoken about what could have been done differently, noting that after past trades and after drafts he’s been available to media.
“I was really hoping that with the championship-caliber team that we’re going to put on the floor, that a lot of the vitriol would have subsided,” he said. “But that didn’t happen due to a lot of the injuries.”
Harrison, though, also was asked if he felt a responsibility to the fan base to understand how upsetting it would be to trade a player as beloved as Doncic.
“My responsibility to the fan base is [to] put a championship caliber team on the floor,” he said. “And we’re going to be judged by wins and losses.”
Being a standout college player and two decades of rising to Nike’s executive level might have helped prepare Harrison to run basketball operations of an NBA franchise, but Nike’s corporate culture seemingly didn’t prepare him to be a public face.
This is where the Mavericks need Welts, whose 47 NBA seasons at the team and league levels include a stint as the Seattle SuperSonics’ media relations director in the late 1970s.
Welts on Tuesday seemed to say most of the right things, largely by speaking indirectly to the fan base through statements and answers to reporters’ questions.
He said the Mavericks and city of Dallas are making headway in finding a 30-to-50 acre tract on which to build a new arena. He reminded everyone of the significant financial commitment a new arena will require from the Dumont and Adelson families.
He patiently explained why the franchise for the second straight year raised ticket prices, this time by an average of 8%, and that even with those increases the Mavericks are middle of the pack among the 30 NBA teams in terms of pricing.
“As one of my ex-bosses at Golden State, Peter Guber, who I adore, used to say, ‘You know, it’s not called show show. It’s called show business.’ “
Welts knew he was stepping into a financial challenge in Dallas. The Mavericks had just spent at least $8 million to create Mavs TV while forgoing what would have $45 million in regional TV revenue. That $53 million loss was a big reason the Mavericks were projected to lose more than $100 million this season – and that was before the Doncic trade.
As another of Welts’ former Golden State bosses, Joe Lacob, told The News in January: “I’ve seen all the [Mavericks’] numbers: I would say when you’re in the fourth-largest market, you should be way better than they have been under Mark Cuban. That’s just to be honest.”
Cuban himself recently admitted in a Facebook post that in his 23 years of majority ownership the Mavericks finished in the black twice and he lost “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Against the backdrop of the Doncic trade fallout, it was refreshing to see Welts’ candor when asked if the Mavericks have lost any corporate sponsors.
“We haven’t yet. Hopeful that we won’t; hopeful that we’ll have new business for next year,” he said, adding of the reports of big financial losses in past seasons:
“Just to be clear, that comment came from Mark Cuban on his time owning the team and his losses that you’re referring to. I probably won’t be here if that’s the case going forward.”
To Harrison’s credit, he mostly was patient when repeatedly asked to explain his rationale for trading Doncic and Grimes.
Also to Harrison’s credit, he said the fan wrath has been another reminder — as was the case when he acquired Irving in 2023 and Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington last season — of how passionate fans are here, and how that’s an asset for the franchise.
Welts, though, put it more eloquently and with more feeling, again clearly speaking directly to fans:
“I would just say that this story is unfinished. We understand the pain, we’re listening. We hear every day the pain that people are feeling.
“But I think you have to judge us from this day forward on, whether or not we’re going to conduct ourselves as an organization and as a basketball team, in a way that fans can embrace.
“As I said, almost 80% of our season-ticket holders made that decision for next year, to give us that chance. I think it’s on us to earn back that trust from others by how we perform as an organization, as a franchise and as a basketball team.”
During the 55-minute discussion, perhaps the most important thing Harrison said was the first paragraph of his opening remarks:
“As the faces of leadership of Dallas, it’s important that Rick and I are side by side. And obviously he’s a Hall of Famer for all the great things that he’s done, and I know he’ll do that in Dallas.”
Perhaps that’s a sign that Harrison is getting it. He probably shouldn’t have waited 73 days before his first side-by-side appearance with Welts.
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