With the 2026 NBA Draft Combine just more than a month away — and the NBA Draft itself 82 days away — it’s getting down to crunch time for the Dallas Mavericks to have a new, fully empowered head of basketball operations. Someone to replace the fired Nico Harrison.
Dallas and team owner/governor Patrick Dumont are going big game hunting for the position, reports Christian Clark of The Athletic.
Internal candidates Matt Riccardi and Michael Finley — Dallas’ co-interim general managers since Nico Harrison’s firing in November — are under consideration to get the job. But the Mavericks, league sources said, also have ambitions of going big-game hunting.
At the top of the target list is Bob Myers, the architect of the Stephen Curry era Warriors dynasty, reports Clark. While money talks, it’s going to be tough to lure Myers out of his current job as president of sports for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which is run by Josh Harris and has majority ownership of the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils and Premier League’s Crystal Palace F.C, as well as connections to the NFL’s Washington Commanders. When Myers stepped down from the Warriors, he said he was looking for a new challenge, something that went beyond basketball, and now he has it. Also, Myers is a California guy — born in the Bay Area and went to college at UCLA — and getting him to pack up and move to Texas makes this even a longer shot.
If Myers is off the board, Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated had another list of names.
Among the names on Dumont’s wish list, per league sources: Oklahoma City executive vice president and general manager Sam Presti, Minnesota president of basketball operations Tim Connelly and Boston president Brad Stevens. Cleveland top exec Koby Altman’s name is also in the mix, a source said.
Presti is highly unlikely to leave Oklahoma City, and the same holds for Stevens in Boston. Connelly did leave Denver for more money and a larger role in Minnesota, but would he do it again to go to Dallas? Both reports say there is no plan to move Jason Kidd up from coaching the team to the front office.
The smart money is on one of Riccardi or Finley getting the job, but at least Dallas is taking a couple of home run swings first.
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