On the cusp of his first training camp as an NBA president and general manager, Nico Harrison’s itinerary was hectic, but that wasn’t evident as he descended the stairs to the Mavericks’ American Airlines Center basement practice court for a brief photoshoot.
He resonated calm and control, all 6-foot-5 of him, in both demeanor and immaculate attire, nary a wrinkle or hint of lint.
It’s a monumental time for the Dallas franchise and its new regime. Playoff success-starved fans wonder about the mystery man GM, but this is an opportunity for which he has prepared much of his 48-year life, even if he didn’t always envision this, exactly.
He didn’t mull the possibility of leaving his dream job as a Nike executive until several NBA teams approached him in recent years. He never got to ask the most influential person in his life, his father, what he thought about the overtures.
Steve Harrison died of cancer in 2016. Nico, though, still sometimes refers to him in present tense, and he mimics Steve’s voice when asked what he would think about this dramatic career change, from behind-the-scenes Nike powerbroker to the spotlight.
That place was so good to you, Nico. Why would you ever leave that?
“That’s my dad,” Nico added, smiling. “That’s how I grew up. That would have been his opinion.
“But, he also knew that I would have done what I wanted to do.”
In time fans will form their own impressions of the GM who, three months after his hiring, still doesn’t have a Wikipedia page — although what will most matter is the Mavericks’ on-court results under new coach Jason Kidd.
For now, know this: Harrison’s family and friends say he is very much his father’s son, but also his own man.
Steve Harrison only missed one day of work in his 30 years at the Kaiser Aluminum plant in Spokane, Wash., where he rose to wroughting room supervisor.
That work ethic, and Steve’s meticulousness in dress and general tidiness, are among the traits that Nico has carried along a winding path that’s been marked by achievement at virtually every stage.
He was a standout multi-sport youth athlete, nicknamed The Blade because of his sheer speed. He became a star basketball player at Tigard High School, southwest of Portland, Ore. He was a West Point appointee and honor student during his one year as a cadet.
He transferred to Montana State, where he was all-conference and all-defensive team all three seasons. He captained the Bobcats to the NCAA Tournament in his senior year, in the process earning Academic All-American honors and a degree in biological and medical sciences.
“It’s weird to say, but Nico was always smarter than all of us,” said his mother, Christie Martinez. “We knew he would achieve something above and beyond what most of us could.
“Nobody was shocked when he got into West Point. It was like, ‘Well, yeah, it’s Nico.’”
A solid foundation
Nico Tyrone Harrison was born in Seattle on December 28, 1972, the fourth of Steve and Christie’s five children.
When the Mavericks hired him, reporters scrambled to learn more about him. Stories conflicted about whether he grew up in Washington or Oregon.
The correct answer: Both, actually.
Steve and Christie divorced when Nico was 5. Christie said the divorce was amicable and that she and Steve always put the kids first, but career opportunities led her to move to Tigard, Ore., where she opened a piano store and taught piano and voice.
Nico moved back and forth until after the ninth grade, when he decided that Tigard High and basketball were his most likely avenue to a scholarship and the college education his father never got.
For years Nico watched Steve iron his work clothes each morning and return at day’s end covered in grit, sometimes with boils on his back from spatters of aluminum smelt.
Steve also ironed the kids’ clothes, even their jeans. He considered grooming to be an indicator of personal discipline, as evidenced years earlier when he arrived at the factory and saw that he’d donned one brown sock and the other blue. He phoned Christie and had her bring a matching sock.
Nico said he saw the inside of the factory only once, when he was in middle school and workers’ families were invited to tour the facility — though the wroughting room was off-limits.
Sure, Steve’s work was grueling, but the reward was being able to afford a nice house with a pool. And when the kids — Joe, Elizabeth, Shivaun, Nico and Brandon — needed speedskates, tennis racquets, boxing gloves or gymnastics gear, Steve made sure they got the best.
Nico says Steve frequently reminded his kids to focus on academics, “so you don’t have to do what I’m doing.”
Christie said Steve also stressed accountability, recalling a day that remains family lore: Nico and Brandon were riding back from a convenience store on their bikes when Nico learned that Brandon stole a candy bar.
When confronted, Brandon tossed the evidence into a bush, but when the boys got home Nico told Steve what happened. Brandon and Nico rode back, found the candy and returned it to the store.
“That’s the way Nico’s always been with everybody,” Christie said. “His brothers and sisters always say, ‘Don’t do the wrong thing in front of Nico.’”
Love of the game
Nico’s first sports love was football, in which he excelled as a receiver and running back. His decision to finish high school in Tigard and focus on basketball proved wise, though one of his new varsity teammates wasn’t thrilled by his arrival.
Emile Shephard, then a junior, says he was jealous that a sophomore had made varsity, nor was he impressed with Harrison’s knuckleball perimeter shot.
That is until Oregon state-ranked Tigard, without its injured starting point guard, had to face Washington state-ranked Columbia River, which not only thrust young Harrison into the starting lineup, but out of his natural position.
“He balled,” Shephard said. “He did spin moves in the lane, finished in the clutch and we won the game. I don’t know if I apologized to him, but I told somebody, ‘Yeah, we need that guy.’”
Shephard and Harrison became inseparable high school buddies, offseason training partners when they played at separate colleges and eventually roommates when both embarked on overseas professional basketball careers.
Shephard says that on the court Harrison was tenacious, confident and physically fit. Off the court, his bedroom was much tidier than that of most teenagers, his clothes were folded in a “professional way” and that people seemed drawn to him.
And that knuckeball jump shot? Shephard says, “It looked a little bit different, but it sure did go in.”
Harrison was so fast, and tall for a guard, that even when opponents backed off of him he often got to the rim or posted up smaller defenders.
He was recruited by PAC-10 schools until a broken ankle during his junior season and torn thumb cartilage his senior year raised durability questions. Among bigger schools, only West Point continued to recruit him, which was more than OK, given Harrison’s ambitions.
If he graduated from West Point, the Army would pay for medical school.
“I never had a Black doctor growing up,” he said. “And I always loved the sciences, so I figured I could be that doctor.”
So, why didn’t he stay at West Point, despite averaging 9.7 points and 3.8 rebounds as a freshman and proving capable academically?
Harrison provided a candid assessment in 1996, on the eve of what was to be his final college game, against Syracuse in the NCAA Tournament, telling The Post-Standard: “I don’t mind hard work, but I don’t like someone always being able to tell me what to do.”
Move to Montana
Washington State associate head coach Jim Shaw met Harrison when he was about 15.
Shaw knew Harrison’s high school coach, immediately noticed Harrison on the court and quickly was drawn by his personality and background.
Shaw was an assistant at Montana State, but he regarded Harrison as a PAC-10 prospect and thus out of Montana State’s recruiting reach. During Harrison’s high school years, Shaw phoned fellow coaches and sent scouting tapes on Harrison’s behalf.
“He knew I wasn’t going [to Montana State] and he still did all that stuff,” Harrison said.
Those efforts were rewarded when Harrison, upon leaving West Point in late June of 1992, had several transfer offers fall through. Harrison, who had never visited Montana State, phoned Shaw with what sounded like an absurd proposal:
If Harrison came to Montana State and paid out of pocket for the year he’d have to sit out under NCAA transfer rules at the time, would Montana State put him on scholarship the next three years?
Shaw says he tried to talk Harrison out of it, then asked him to sleep on it. When Harrison phoned back the next morning, Shaw took the proposal to head coach Mick Durham.
“It was like selling a date with Beyoncé to a single guy,” Shaw said.
When Harrison arrived that fall in the Bozeman, Montana, airport and saw moose heads on the wall, he wondered what he was getting into. The bottom line, though, was that Montana State offered a degree that would keep Harrison on track for medical school.
It worked out well for all concerned. In the last 70 years, Montana State’s men’s basketball program has achieved four 20-win seasons. Two happened during Harrison’s tenure. It was no wonder when, in 2015, he was inducted into the Bobcat Hall of Fame.
“He’s always been a guy who had success written all over him,” Shaw said. “It was just a matter of which direction he took the car.”
After graduation, Harrison figured he would take a gap year, apply to medical schools and try to play professionally overseas.
The one-year detour morphed into seven. One stint was with a Belgian team in the college town of Leuven. He played two seasons for the Tokyo-based Hitachi Honsha Rising Sun. He briefly played in the Continental Basketball Association.
His final season was in Lebanon, playing for a team based in Beirut. Downtown still was battle-scarred from the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.
“The people were amazing,” he said. “You had Muslims and you had Christians and they didn’t always see eye-to-eye. Coming from the U.S. you can’t understand the conflict, but you can appreciate it because you can see how your teammates feel.”
On September 11, 2001, Harrison awoke to horrific scenes playing out in the United States. He was 28.
“My body was breaking down,” he said. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to be here.’ It just fast-forwarded my decision.”
He caught one of the last flights out of the Middle East, to Amsterdam, his pro playing career over.
To the corporate world
He returned to Oregon and worked for a year in pharmaceutical sales, “just to buy myself time to get back into school,” when a friend at Nike informed him of an NBA field rep opening.
“I was like, ‘That’s a job?’ Dumb luck, I applied and got it.”
The date was April 2, 2002. The job was Dallas-based. Harrison lived on Montford Drive, near the Dallas North Tollway. His office was in the Galleria.
His territory, the Southwest Region, encompassed eight NBA teams and, more specifically, Nike-affiliated players and potential Nike signees. Harrison’s job largely was about relationship-building and talent evaluation.
Among the early players Harrison represented were current Mavericks vice president of basketball operations and assistant GM Michael Finley, Spurs star Tim Duncan and rising Indiana star Jermaine O’Neal.
Actually, O’Neal and Harrison already were acquaintances. Harrison’s cousin, Deddrick Faison, was business manager to O’Neal, drafted by Portland in 1996 at age 17.
In 1997, O’Neal and Harrison faced one another in a Portland charity game, during which Harrison bravely attempted to block one of 6-11 O’Neal’s dunks.
“Nico won’t admit to this, but he was super-athletic,” O’Neal said. “I mean, he could really fly. He tried to jump with me and he was up so high, I looked at him like ‘What you doin’ up here?’
“Then I disposed of him at the basket.”
O’Neal, in 2002, earned the first of his six All-Star berths. In a sense, his and Harrison’s careers blossomed together. O’Neal became one of the rare non-guards or wings to land shoe commercials.
During his periodic contract negotiations with Nike, O’Neal marveled at how seamlessly Harrison separated friendship and business.
“He gave what was earned,” O’Neal said. “I think that’s what made Nico successful and what everybody respects about him.
“What the average spectator doesn’t understand is in the business of professional sports it’s hard to trust people. What he was able to do was peel back that armor and get to know players and have them know him. He gave me a vision and believed in me.”
A year into his Nike tenure, Harrison was promoted to a national marketing position, enabling him to not only work closely with the likes of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and, yes, Kidd, but also forge relationships at the college, high school and AAU levels.
O’Neal says he has high respect for Harrison’s Mavericks predecessor, Donnie Nelson, whom O’Neal considers to be foremost assessor of European talent.
But O’Neal, whose four-year-old, Irving-based Drive Nation Sports has helped develop R.J. Hampton, Tyrese Maxey, Jahmi’us Ramsey and Cade Cunningham, among 70-plus Division I athletes, says Harrison brings a perspective that few if any other NBA teams possess.
“The main difference is Nico has more footprints on the ground,” O’Neal said. “Nike does such a great job on the grassroots side, so once these kids gets get through college and go pro, it’s understanding who they are. Either they are best in class, or they’re not.
“Getting a young, energized mindset of someone who understands this era of players, I think is going to be beneficial for the Mavs.”
Professional leap of faith
It was no accident when Harrison and Kidd were hired on the same day. They have been close for nearly two decades.
Harrison’s favorite Kidd story is from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where Kidd helped lead the Redeem Team to the gold medal.
“A group of us were in a car, getting ready to go eat,” Harrison recalled. “Everybody’s like, ‘Where’s Jason?’ I volunteer to go get him. He comes out through a different entrance.
“Then they leave me.”
Harrison’s Nike travels enabled him to meet his future wife, Darlise, at the time a New York-based producer for ABC News and BET’s “106 & Park” show.
They met when Darlise produced a feature about one of Harrison’s star clients, Alonzo Mourning.
Nico rose to Nike’s vice president of North America basketball operations while building a faith-centered family after the births of Nia (now 13) and Noelle (11). Christie says Darlise refers to herself as the family’s point guard.
“I wouldn’t have been in my position at Nike without her, and I wouldn’t be in this job without her,” Harrison said. “She’s held down the house, allowing me to focus on the career but also be engaged and involved in the family.
“You can be involved in both, but someone has to set the table for you so that when you’re there, you can make a day feel like three days or an afternoon feel like two afternoons.”
His close friend, Bryant, beat him to fatherhood and, like Harrison, had all girls, in his case four. Bryant was passionate about being a Girl Dad, a pride Harrison would come to share.
“It’s exactly what you need,” he said. “Being a Girl Dad is the best.”
When Nia was born, Christie rushed to the hospital to meet her new granddaughter. At some point after arriving, she slipped off her shoes.
“Mother,” Nico said, “you have a hole in your sock.”
Christie and Nico’s siblings tease him about his meticulousness, to which he shrugs.
“When it’s instilled in you, you don’t think it’s anything different.”
When Steve died, Nico and Brandon were by his side.
Steve long had retired from the aluminum factory. Long enough to see Joe become an engineer for Burlington-Northern; Shivaun a clinical cancer researcher; Elizabeth become a Walmart associate in New York; Brandon work sales for Pitney Bowes and play in a heavy metal band that once opened for Motley Crue.
Christie, 74, remarried and travels the world as an AKC dog judge.
Nico didn’t become a doctor, but he’s made the world his wroughting room, melded and shaped by people and experiences and diverse perspectives.
“You think one way where you’re from,” he said. “And then you go to West Point and you meet people from all over and they have different thoughts than you do.
“And then you go to Montana State and see people that, honestly, I’m probably the first Black person they met. Everywhere you go you’re educating people, but you’re also getting educated on how they think.”
This is who Nico Harrison is and what he brings to the Mavericks. He’s a sharp dresser, too.
