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00:00Good afternoon, and thanks everybody for coming here as we try to close out this year and then obviously get ready for next year.
00:09Before I start, I'd really like to give a heartfelt thank you to the Dallas Mavericks staff.
00:14During the year, it's countless hours on the road.
00:17It's tons of times away from your family, and their commitment to our team has been amazing throughout the whole year.
00:24And then a big thank you to Jay Kidd and his staff.
00:28The job they did this year was elite.
00:30They went the last two and a half months without having any practices, but they still got our team in position to win.
00:38And a lot of times, not only did they not have practices, they also didn't know who was going to play because of the revolving door.
00:46And so I'd just like to thank them.
00:48And then lastly, the players, they never say die attitude.
00:53They embodied that next man up, you know, kind of all the cliches.
00:58Like, they literally lived that this year.
01:01And they ended up playing inspiring basketball, and it really showed their character.
01:06It was on full display.
01:10Injuries depleted this year, depleted our roster, excuse me, from the start of training camp.
01:16But the players and staff never wavered, and it really gives us optimism for next year.
01:23Defense wins championships, and we are hanging our hat on defense.
01:27We're going to return one of the best front lines in the NBA, and we have one of the deepest and the most versatile benches.
01:33The draft this year is extremely deep, and we're excited to play the role that we are.
01:40We'll see where we go after the draft lottery, but we know we're going to get a really good player.
01:45And then we'll also use free agency to kind of shore up the rest of the roster.
01:50With the support of the fans, we are committed to coming back next year stronger than ever.
01:54Every decision we make this year will be through the lens of competing to win, and our goal is to bring a championship back to Dallas.
02:04And with that, I'll open up for questions.
02:12Hey, Nico.
02:13In the few days since your roundtable discussion with some reporters and since the end of the season, some players have acknowledged the challenge of playing through the post-trade noise.
02:28And in hindsight, they and Jason were the ones who primarily hadn't answered the questions about that over the last couple of months.
02:37Do you feel like the franchise and you specifically could have or should have done more to maybe mitigate that or deflect that away from them?
02:47No, good question.
02:49Yeah, we could have been better.
02:51You know, as I look back on it in hindsight, we could have been better.
02:54Our goal is never to run away from the media.
02:56That's part of the job, and that's the obligation.
03:00But also, we wanted to talk after we had our roster.
03:05You know, our plan was to put Kyrie, Clay, AD, PJ, Lively on the floor so that people could see the vision.
03:13And unfortunately, that actually never came.
03:16So there was never a good time for us to do that.
03:20And Nico, Christian Clark with The Athletic.
03:22You know, in the weeks leading up to the trade, how much discussion internally was about just, you know,
03:29trade in Luca for another player who, up to that point, had missed a lot more time in his career effectively,
03:35like trading a guy for a player who, I guess, was more injury prone.
03:40How much did you guys discuss that or think about that?
03:43Yeah, I mean, when you trade a guy of Luca's caliber, you're not taking it lightly.
03:48So we discussed everything.
03:50But we really feel that defense is our calling card and what we're going to hang our hat on.
03:56And when we had an opportunity to get one of the best two-way players in the league, we jumped at that opportunity.
04:03Over here, Isaac from Locked On Mavs.
04:06Oh, I'm sorry.
04:07No, no.
04:07You know, when Luca comes back to town, the Lakers game's happening, and you're standing there,
04:13and there's thousands of people chanting for you to be fired.
04:17That's an experience that none of us, you know, no one's chanting for our, you know, for us to lose our jobs.
04:24Why shouldn't you be fired?
04:30Well, one, I think I've done a really good job here.
04:33And I don't think I can be judged by the injuries this year.
04:37You have to judge from totality, from beginning to end.
04:41And so I think I have a really good working relationship with Patrick.
04:46I think you add in Rick.
04:48The leadership that we have is really elite.
04:52And you'll see next year when our team comes back, we're going to be competing for a championship.
04:58Nico, you say repeatedly over to your left.
05:01You say repeatedly that defense wins championships.
05:03Are you saying it was impossible to build a roster that included Luka Doncic that was strong enough defensively to win a championship?
05:13No, I think it's really doubling down on defense.
05:17And, you know, like I said, when we had the opportunity to get Anthony Davis, who is one of the best two-way players in the league, we jumped at that opportunity.
05:24Hi, Nico.
05:26Joey Mastretta with Clutch Points.
05:28Going off that question, you've made it very clear defense wins championships.
05:31And that's a very respectable mentality, a little basketball saying.
05:35Looking at Luka Doncic, he did get this team to the NBA Finals last year.
05:39When you look at Luka Doncic, do you consider him a championship-level player?
05:44You know, that's kind of an unfair question.
05:49Luka's no longer on this team.
05:51But what I am excited about is I do believe we have a championship-caliber team.
05:55And we'll show that next year.
05:59Mike Curtis, Dallas Morning News.
06:01Piggybacking off that a little bit, you mentioned last week that Dirk is no longer around the franchise.
06:06Obviously, Luka isn't a part of the franchise anymore.
06:10And there are two figures that mean a lot to this organization and the fan base.
06:14Obviously, it's severed right now just with everything that's happened.
06:19Like, I guess, how do you repair the relationship with the fan base going forward?
06:24Well, one, you mentioned Dirk.
06:27And so it's important to say, like, he's the single most important figure to the franchise.
06:32So that's extremely important.
06:34I believe winning will help repair the relationship with the fans.
06:38And that's what we plan to do next year.
06:40I know you said winning will repair it.
06:43But have you ever thought about what if it doesn't?
06:47I'm an optimistic person.
06:48And I move by faith, not by fear.
06:54Nico, Joe Trahan from WFAA.
06:56You said earlier you don't like to run from the media.
06:59But, Nico, I am interested in your reasoning by having that roundtable discussion without any cameras or audio equipment and then less than a week later having this meeting that we're in right now.
07:13What's your thought process behind doing it that way if you say you don't want to run from the media?
07:19Yeah, no, it was a good question.
07:21It was a collective thought process.
07:23It was meant to be more of like a roundtable discussion.
07:27Clearly, it didn't have the goal that we intended on doing it.
07:32So that's why we're coming back here today.
07:34The goal was that I answered all the questions today.
07:37I could talk about the team as it currently is and then what we do going forward.
07:41But because it fell flat today, basically I'm answering the same questions I answered last week because we didn't do a good enough job.
07:49The other part that we really wanted to show is the face of the leadership of the Mavericks going forward, which is Rick and I.
07:55And so those were the two goals.
07:57Is part of the reason you're doing this today because you felt the fan base needed more and there wasn't an adequate response to why you made the deal?
08:05Is that why we're sitting here today?
08:07No, it was, well, one, we do this every year.
08:10This is, we do excellent interviews.
08:12It's no, it's no different than what we've done in previous years.
08:16But because we haven't adequately answered the questions, we figured we would open it up as well right now.
08:24And Nico, will Anthony Davis need surgery this summer?
08:29No, he won't.
08:30He finished the season fine.
08:32He feels good about where he's at and he'll continue to build and get healthy.
08:36Will Derek Lively need surgery this summer?
08:38I don't believe he will either.
08:39And, you know, you said defense won championships.
08:42We saw the Nuggets two years ago.
08:43I mean, they finished 15th in defense the regular season.
08:46It's kind of the one of the 30 guys who runs an NBA team.
08:49What's just your analysis of how, I guess, that Nuggets team won the championship?
08:53You know, it's, I don't want to dismiss your question, but I'm not concerned about the Nuggets.
09:01I feel like we have a championship caliber team when we're whole.
09:04And we're going to hang our hat on defense.
09:06We're going to be one of the best defensive teams in the league.
09:08And I think that's going to be our calling card.
09:09Niko, right here.
09:12Mack Engle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
09:14When you were kicking the idea of this trade around and you had various scenarios planned in your head,
09:21did the anger and outrage from the fan base, has that exceeded what you were kind of planning for?
09:27Yeah, good question.
09:32I did know that Luka was important to the fan base.
09:35I didn't quite know it to what level.
09:39But really, the way we looked at it is, you know, if you're putting a team on the floor that's Kyrie, Clay, PJ, Anthony Davis, and Lively,
09:50we feel that's a championship caliber team.
09:52And we would have been winning at a high level.
09:55And that would have quieted some of the outrage.
09:57And so, unfortunately, we weren't able to do that.
10:00So it just continued to, you know, go on and on.
10:04There have been a million theories about why you did the deal.
10:07One of them was that you were told to do it, that Mr. Dumont said,
10:11I didn't want to give the Supermax contract, which is obviously very expensive, to Luka.
10:16Were you told that you had to trade him?
10:18No, not at all.
10:20Patrick reminds me of the leadership that I had at Nike.
10:24And, you know, a really good leader doesn't tell the people that work for them what to do.
10:29It's a collective, you know, well-thought-out process to make a big move like that.
10:35And then also, unfortunately, I'm super stubborn.
10:38So someone telling me to do something doesn't work too well for me.
10:42Niko over here.
10:44Speaking of Patrick, has this impacted your relationship with him at all since making the deal?
10:50Has this frayed your relationship working with him?
10:52Yeah, it actually strengthened it because we talk a lot more and we're kind of linked together to this, you know.
11:03And so it's made us have to have a lot more conversation.
11:06So I believe that we have a really good working relationship.
11:10He came out publicly and supported me.
11:13And so I don't take that lightly.
11:15And so now I have to deliver on that.
11:19What about you and Jason Kidd?
11:20You guys have been close for such a long time.
11:22How involved was he in this deal at the time?
11:25And how has this impacted your relationship with him as well?
11:28Yeah, Jason, you know, I've answered this a few times.
11:32You know, Jason, I brought him in on the 11th hour.
11:35And the reason for that is because constantly during trade deadline, you're having tons of conversations.
11:41Most of the stuff never sees the light of day.
11:44And so Jason's obligation is to coach the team that he has right there.
11:48The last thing I can do is get him distracted by what could be, what may be.
11:53Jason and I are connected.
11:55We have a great relationship.
11:56We've had one for 20 years.
11:58And I know how Jason thinks.
12:00I know the players that he likes.
12:02I know the style of play that he wants to play.
12:05And we're connected.
12:07Dorothy Gentry from Texas Metro News.
12:10Nico, how personally are you handling all of this?
12:14What keeps you in front of everyone?
12:16People, the fans are upset.
12:19Almost hate.
12:21I have to say the word.
12:22How do you deal with that?
12:24How are you dealing with that?
12:26One.
12:26And then two, do you understand how they feel?
12:29I think they want to know that you feel their pain about losing Luca.
12:34What can you say to them?
12:36Well, when you have 20,000 people in this stadium chanting fire, Nico, you really feel it.
12:42I mean, it's, I use the word awesome, but not in a positive way.
12:47Like, you can really feel how they feel.
12:49So, yes, I feel them.
12:51How am I doing?
12:53I'm good.
12:53You know, I said this last week.
12:55God's got me covered.
12:56I have an amazing family and an amazing support group to get through it.
13:01But, no, I absolutely feel it.
13:04But I'm also, you know, my job is to make decisions that I feel are in the best interest of this organization.
13:10And I've got to stand by the decision.
13:12And some of them are going to be unpopular.
13:13And this was clearly one that's unpopular.
13:14Nico, you've said over and over about defense wins championships.
13:20And you've been here several years with Luca for the trade.
13:23I'm wondering at what, and he was pretty much a known product.
13:25He was who he was.
13:27At what point did you decide that you wanted to try to move him for something different?
13:33Yeah, it was never, like, it wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back.
13:38When you live with someone for three years, you get to know their strengths and weaknesses.
13:42It was more about a change in philosophy.
13:44In terms of how can we get a top defensive team that will help us win a championship.
13:50Again, this trade may never even have happened.
13:53But once the opportunity presented itself, we jumped on it.
13:57So that wasn't something that it built over, like, six months, eight months, nine months?
14:02No, no, not at all.
14:05Grant asks DallasHoopesJournal.com.
14:07Over here.
14:08Yeah, right here.
14:09The organization had dealt with injuries, you know, long before the trade deadline as well.
14:13But I traded a healthy player in Quentin Grimes for an injured player in Caleb Martin.
14:18And it had hard capped the team at the first apron with 14 players.
14:22Did maybe the organization have any takeaways from that going forward about managing the salary cap in season?
14:27You know, when injuries kind of mount and you need to sign a 15th player?
14:32Yeah, absolutely.
14:33It's actually a great question.
14:35We looked at our managing of the salary cap as maximizing it to its full potential.
14:41So Caleb was one of the players that we were able to get that would actually just barely fit under the cap and the apron.
14:50And so we took that and we knew what we were giving up.
14:56We knew that we were only going to be able to sign one 10-day.
14:59But the chances of 10 players out of 18 available players being hurt, we took that risk to get a player of Caleb who we liked forever.
15:10And so we did it.
15:12And now, you know, to your point, did we learn something?
15:15Absolutely.
15:15That, you know, there are scenarios where you can have more than 10 players hurt, which, you know, doesn't typically happen.
15:22And so that will be something that we'll keep in mind as we move forward.
15:27Eddie Sefko, Mazz.com.
15:29A couple of things that go up along those lines.
15:32It was a horrific season for injuries, but what's your confidence level?
15:38I mean, these are older players who sometimes tend to get injured more or take longer to heal.
15:44Your confidence level that this was an aberration?
15:47Well, one, before the trade, 90% of our injuries were contact injuries.
15:52So when you have contact injuries, by and large, those are unavoidable.
15:57And so it didn't matter if you were young or old, contact injuries are contact injuries.
16:04So we have a great staff.
16:07And so I'm extremely optimistic that next year we'll go back to the mean and you'll see a really good team out there.
16:14Also, what thing or maybe things need to happen in your mind primarily to get this franchise back toward contending status and respectability?
16:29Really, we just need to get healthy.
16:30I think the team that we're bringing back is a championship caliber team.
16:34And we fully expect to have Kyrie back with us next year when he gets healed from his injury.
16:41And we believe we'll compete for a championship.
16:44Yeah, you mentioned Kyrie.
16:46What's the pathway to either a contract extension?
16:48I know he has a player option, obviously a decision to make.
16:51But what's your confidence that something beyond that can get done this summer?
16:57Kyrie is a big part of what our future is.
17:00And that's not going to change whether he opts in or opts out.
17:06Rashad Miller, Dallas Weekly.
17:07Right here.
17:08I know in your opening remarks you talked about this offseason, your goals for this offseason.
17:15But can you give us kind of what you're going to do at like for the next two or three seasons?
17:21Yeah.
17:22I mean, our core actually is connected for the next two or three seasons.
17:26So I don't see much movement from our core.
17:28I really see how you shape around that.
17:31And it starts with the draft.
17:32You said that Patrick Dumont initially laughed at you when you brought him the Luka trade.
17:39What did you say to convince him to approve it?
17:41It wasn't really a laugh.
17:44It was more of a chuckle.
17:47But really it was just I said it out of the blue.
17:51And then as we started talking more, I gave him reasoning behind it.
17:55And, you know, we're a very process-oriented organization.
17:58And everything we do is without emotion and goes through the lens of process.
18:03And so once we had those substantive discussions, then he saw the vision.
18:09Hey, Christian Clark again.
18:11Do you feel like, just to follow up on Mike's question, do you feel like Kyrie opting in is a possibility?
18:17It's too early to speculate what Kyrie's going to do.
18:20But what I do feel is going to happen, he's going to be a Maverick next year.
18:26And then just, you know, he's going to be out a significant portion of next season.
18:32Like, do you feel like you guys have to do something to address just creation to get through that time?
18:38And how do you go about doing that?
18:41Well, one, I feel good.
18:43You can't replace Kyrie through free agency.
18:45He's too good of a player.
18:46We have a really deep, versatile bench.
18:49And some of those guys will have to create the void.
18:54It's going to be by committee.
18:55We'll use free agency.
18:57And then we'll also use the draft.
18:59Nico, Noah Weber from the Smoking Cuban.
19:01One thing you said a few minutes ago is you said me and Coach Kidd are aligned.
19:04You know the player that he likes.
19:06But when it comes to a trade of this magnitude, obviously it's the main player that led y'all to the finals last season.
19:12So I wanted to ask you, what did that conversation look like at the 11th hour when you told him that y'all would be trading Luka Doncic?
19:19And do you think it was fair to him to have y'all's entire team built around Luka, but then in the middle of the season,
19:25him having to pivot to a completely different player to try to make the title run again?
19:29Sure, I think there's some difficulties any time when you do a trade that big during the middle of the season.
19:37I mean, we saw it when we traded for Kyrie a couple years ago.
19:40Sometimes trades take a little longer to you to really see how good of a trade it was.
19:45But I also know his connectivity to Anthony Davis.
19:48He won a championship with him with the Lakers.
19:50I know his admiration for him as a defensive player.
19:54And so I wasn't worried about that.
19:55What did y'all's conversation look like when you let him know?
20:01It was really brief.
20:03I just told him the reasoning behind it and let him know.
20:06And he understood.
20:07And he got geared up to start whiteboarding to get ready to see how we would play with Anthony Davis.
20:14Did you feel like he agreed to let him know?
20:17I don't think it's about agreeing, but he aligns with how I think in terms of defense wins championships.
20:23That's how he feels.
20:24So he also aligns with the philosophy of versatile style of play.
20:30And so it wasn't really about agreeing or disagreeing.
20:33It was about, I see the vision.
20:35Let's go.
20:35And then defense has been one thing that's been talked about so many times when you're referring to this trade.
20:41With you trading Luka, in a way you're betting on Anthony Davis to help you guys.
20:45But it's also you thinking maybe Luka would help or that AD would help more than Dodgers did.
20:51Outside of defense, why are you betting against Luka Dodgers not being able to bring y'all a title when he was here?
20:56Yeah, it's more about AD than, you know, I'm not going to bet against Luka or speak negatively towards him.
21:04He's not here anymore.
21:05But it's the belief that I have in the guys that are in this locker room.
21:10Nico, Russell Scott, NewsRadio 1080, KRLD.
21:14Did you say you did not foresee the fan reaction with the trade?
21:20And what would going public with the trade have done?
21:24And I don't quite understand what would have happened if you would have gone public.
21:30No, I said I did see the outrage, just maybe not to the degree that it actually ended up being.
21:39But I also think part of that is because we weren't able to put a team on the floor.
21:43That was, you know, day in and day out winning.
21:45I think if we would have put the team that we intended to put on the floor, I think that would have quieted some of the outrage.
21:52Nika, Brad Townsend, Dallas Morning News again.
21:56Let's kind of piggyback off my first question.
22:00So during the Western Conference Finals run three years ago, and then also during the Finals run,
22:06you weren't really out in front of cameras.
22:09You know, you were really letting the players and the coaches take the credit.
22:14But I wonder if this year has been a lesson to you in terms of, as you put it,
22:19being a public face of the franchise in terms of, you know, standing up during times of crisis.
22:27And because it feels like this franchise was in crisis mode these last couple of months.
22:33Yeah, you know, we always, at the end of the year, we evaluate everything and what we could have done better.
22:40And clearly we could have done a better job with that.
22:42And we take that and we own it.
22:44And you'll see us be better going forward.
22:48Nico, back here.
22:49Sam Gannon, Fox 4.
22:51Luka recently did a sit-down with ESPN's Malika Andrews.
22:54And he was asked about a question that was posed to you last week about whether or not you believe that you could contend for championships with Luka at the centerpiece.
23:03You said defense wins championships.
23:05Luka was quoted as saying, it's just sad the way he's talking right now.
23:08I never say anything bad about him and I just want to move on.
23:11How do you react to that quote?
23:13I feel the same way he does.
23:15Like, I've actually never spoken ill of Luka at all.
23:18And I'm just ready to move on with this team that we have.
23:23You having fun?
23:24There's been a lot of bit of, quite a bit of speculation that one of the reasons that you made the trade was that you guys just couldn't get along in terms of he saw things and his team saw things that he's going to do it this way and you wanted him to do it that way.
23:45True or not?
23:47No.
23:47Well, you know, I worked at Nike for 20 years and there's, there's like superstars.
23:52They have, they have teams around them and you have to cater to them and that's part of the job and they've earned it.
23:58So I don't worry about getting along with people.
24:02I can work with anybody.
24:03Then the other observation is of, not necessarily that you made a big trade, but what you got in return.
24:09What did you feel like prevented you, and maybe that's the wrong word, from getting more in return when we've seen other NBA trades, the one that stands to mind is Rudy Gobert, what Minnesota gave up to acquire him, that you couldn't necessarily get more from Los Angeles than three assets?
24:27Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, and I said this last week, if you don't value AD as an all-NBA player and an all-defensive player, then you're not going to like the trade.
24:40We targeted AD, but if you don't like him, then there's nothing else we get that's going to make you excited about the trade, and we value him.
24:50All right, just two more questions.
24:52Dylan Reed, Ticket in Dallas.
24:54Are you worried that the Luka trade is going to hurt you guys in free agent negotiation moving forward?
25:00You know, it feels as though, and at least he's highlighted as much, that he feels as though maybe it really was done behind his back.
25:06Are you worried that moving forward, other players that come here might think, well, if I go there, what if they trade me without knowing?
25:13Is that a concern you guys have?
25:15Not at all.
25:16You know, when I first got this job here, I was told that the Dallas Mavericks, you know, struggled to get free agents, and one of the things I said is, we're going to get free agents.
25:23And it's not just about me, but you have Hall of Famer and Jason Kidd.
25:28You have a bunch of amazing players that, you know, Kyrie Irving, like people want to play with him.
25:33So I think we have a lot that's in our favor, so I don't worry about getting free agents.
25:37That's the least of my concerns.
25:39Okay.
25:42Rashad Miller again.
25:44I know you talked about, you know, staying optimistic and things like that, but what are some of the worst-case scenarios?
25:51Like, if you can't acquire the assets to build a winning team?
25:55I think we have the assets already.
25:57It's just building around them.
25:59So I don't – I'm sorry, but I'm not capable of looking at the worst-case scenario.
26:04It's everything about what we do is about how do we continue to get better.
26:07We're coming back already with what we feel is a championship-caliber team.
26:11So now we'll use the draft.
26:13We'll use free agency to add to that.