Anyone who's been to a Dallas Mavericks home game in the last two months can count on one thing. No, it's not a good game of basketball. It's a deafening chorus of "Fire Nico" chants.
The chants started shortly after Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison stunningly dealt Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in early February and have continued up until the end of the 2024-25 season, with the Mavs getting eliminated from postseason contention last week.
During the Mavericks' end-of-season presser, Harrison was bluntly asked for his thoughts on the inescapable "Fire Nico" chants that are clearly coming from a place of outrage and resentment following Doncic's departure. More specifically, did Harrison feel the pain of Mavericks fans parting ways with their franchise superstar?
The Mavs GM had quite the strange response:
"When you have 20,000 people in the stadium chanting 'Fire Nico,' you really feel it," Harrison said. "I mean it's—I use the word 'awesome,' but not in a positive way. Like, you can really feel how they feel."
It's possible that no one living in the modern age has ever used the word "awesome" in a derogatory context (the word technically means "filled with awe" and dates back to the 16th century). There are, after all, plenty more apt words in the English language at one's disposal.
In any case, Harrison continued:
"How am I doing? I'm good. You know, I said this last week, God's got me covered. I have an amazing family and an amazing support group to get through it but no, I absolutely feel [the fans' pain]... But my job is to make decisions I feel are in the best interest of this organization, and I gotta stand by the decisions, and some of them are going to be unpopular. This was clearly one that's unpopular."
Unpopular might be an understatement given that Harrison irrevocably changed the trajectory of the Mavericks organization with the Doncic trade. Time will tell if "forgiveness" is in the Mavs fanbase's vocabulary in the future.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Nico Harrison Used A Very Odd Word to Describe Mavs Fans Chanting ‘Fire Nico’ at Games.
