Cooper Flagg’s expectations in Dallas + Rockets’ guard Reed Sheppard joins! | NBA Today

Cooper Flagg’s expectations in Dallas + Rockets’ guard Reed Sheppard joins! | NBA Today

We are live from Las Vegas for NBA Summer League. All 30 teams will be here competing at the Thomas and Max Center. A look at this rookie class. The first game tips off in just about 30 minutes. And NBA today is here to get things started. Here’s a look at Cooper Flag. Just a few hours away from his debut, warming up on the court here in Vegas a little earlier this morning. We will have his game for you right here on ESPN as we say hello to Vegas basketball in July. Hi, Bobby Marks. What number summer league is this for you? Number 29. Number 29 for Mr. Marks, our elder summer league statesman over here, Udonis Hasslam, who has played in these games. Our senior insider shop for me. 12 for you, nine for me. 22 22. We’re going to get a look at Jeremiah Fears and Derek Queen, as well as Sharon Tannants Jr., Rob Dillingham. That game tips off behind us in just about 30 minutes between the New Orleans Pelicans and the Minnesota Timberwolves here. But of course, this crowd that’s already actually pretty impressive is going to be a whole lot bigger when Cooper Flag suits up at 5:00 local time tonight for the Dallas Mavericks when they’re in action here. If you wanted to get a ticket, Yudonis, for that game, I hope you already did because they are pricey. If you want to get into the building, it’ll cost you an average of $25 for today’s session. That’s just outside the top five for a single day at Vegas Summer League. here. I’m hearing great things, by the way, gentlemen, coming out of the Dallas Mavericks camp. Bobby, I don’t know what you’ve heard about about Cooper and his postdraft process here. They’ve been really impressed, especially with his outside shooting. Well, that’s the big thing. I I think defensively, we know what he get he can do as far as impact the game here. And it’s the unknown as far as the ability to kind of stretch the floor because a lot of what happened at Duke this year is kind of like an a European team where everyone had to sacrifice and maybe some of the things that were not showcased this year. And uh I know talking with people from the Mavericks, they are through the moon as far as what we could potentially see in Cooper Flag. Through the moon to the roof to the through the moon. Does that even make sense? I’m not sure it does, but when Cooper is coming to Cooper Flag, it doesn’t have to make sense. That’s the level of talent that we’re talking about here, Udon, is expectations when you’re talking about summer league. It’s a little bit tricky, right? Because we see excellent players not necessarily have an amazing first showing. What are you hoping to see from Cooper Flag in this first viewing? Well, the expectations are a little bit different for different people in different situations. My expectations for summer league, I had to open eyes. I had to come in. I had to get numbers. I had to turn heads. When I look at a situation like Cooper Flag, I look at what he’s able to do on the basketball court and I say, you don’t want to look at his numbers. You don’t want to, per se, look at the stat sheet at the end of the night. You want to look at how comfortable he is. You want to put him in different situations. You want to maximize his minutes when he’s on the court. You want to make sure he’s comfortable. You want to see what he’s not comfortable doing. You want to get in that firm. You want to work on those weaknesses. For me, this is like a trial for Cooper Flag to see what he maximizes and what his strengths are. I’m always interested in seeing exactly like the big moment. I remember seeing Zion Williamson a few years ago and he just like would snatch the ball away from players like I think it was Kevin Knox. He just snatched it right out of his hand. Like I think Cooper Flag is capable of making those like eye eyeball plays where it’s just it it blows you away. Yeah, it certainly can be eye popping when you watch Cooper Flag. Something that certainly made me do a double take. Can I tell you all a quick story? We land yesterday at the airport here in Las Vegas, right? And I’m going over to to to number carousol number 16 to gather my bags and and get set for this trip here. And I look across the way and there is the entire Dallas Mavericks team who flew commercial here, including Cooper Flag, waiting like the rest of us, to grab his bag off of the carousel with his teammates. He did get a first class seat on the flight, but again, usually we’re not used to seeing these guys in that sort of environment. And for Cooper, he kind of has just taken this I’m every man approach, but when he’s on the floor, it’s out of this world in a lot of ways. And I’m curious if we’re going to see him playing point guard at all tonight here, Bobby. That’s what I’ve circled. That’s what I’m most interested to see because we saw Jason Kidd in when uh Cooper was introduced in his press conference come out and say we’re gonna throw him into the fire here in this Lakers game and we’re going to have him play a little bit point guard and I think that’s going to be important because summer league is all about experimenting as far as putting in guys in uncomfortable positions especially for a Mavericks team that will not have Kyrie Irving to start the season. They recently signed D’Angelo Russell. I’m intrigued to see Cooper flag with the ball in this game later today. Certainly, it’s the the the lottery picks that all of us have our eyes on, but also this is a time for guys who maybe were undrafted, who aren’t necessarily on a roster spot yet, to prove themselves to general managers around the league. That’s kind of one of my favorite parts about this. And it’s the first action and the biggest action for a lot of these guys in their careers. Guys land contracts from what we see in these games and they have a massive UD being probably one of the major ones that’s had a championship level impact. This is a great place when you see players stand out and players get two ways off these deals, partial guarantees, and they end up being players that make factors come regular season. But Malikica, honestly, what I look at, you have uh it’s a melting pot what’s going on in Vegas right now. You have agents, you have team execs, you have team owners all on site here. We see on camera, some of them meet on camera, but there’s so many behindthe-scenes meetings that take place. The NBA’s moratorum is over. So, guys are now officially able to sign. they’re able to meet with teams and and I think a lot of that happens in back hallways of hotels and in back you know rooms restaurants and things like that. So that’s what I have also got my my eye on there could be a lot of movement in the league. This is when I start singing Hamilton, right? We’re in the room where it happens when we’re here in Las Vegas. Well, and to be a good company man, this is Disneyland on uh in the NBA version. If you want to come to Disneyland for the NBA, come to Las Vegas for the next 10 days. Last year’s number three overall pick, Reed Shepard. Reed, thank you so much for spending a little time with us today. Thank you guys for having me on. We really appreciate it. I’m always excited. We were talking in the break when a player, especially a top pick, decides to come back and play a second year at summer league, no matter how big or how small their role was in in the regular season in playoffs for their team the year before. What made you want to come back and play again and work on that skill set? Yeah, I think the biggest thing is just I love basketball. Um, you know, being able to come back and play is just it’s just a lot of fun. You you get a workout all summer being in the gym doing that. But being able to come out here and play against uh different players and just get up and down the court is always fun. We mentioned Kevin Durant. We were all watching the highlights together leading into this segment. What did you think when you heard he was going to be your teammate? How do you think you could compliment him? Yeah, I mean, obviously when I saw it, uh it was it was really cool for me. Um you know, I’ve grew up watching him my whole life, so it’s kind of crazy now that I’m going to be uh playing with him. Uh you know, he’s just a tremendous great scoreer. Um really can do anything. He’s great winner. Um so it’s going to be really fun. I’m really excited to play with him. Kachams in bringing Kevin to the Rockets. There were certain players that Houston said, “No, no, they cannot be a part of this deal.” Yeah. So Reed, now that we have you here, I’d love to get your take. So obviously you were top pick last year. Um your role es and flowed. You had injury as well, but you’re on a top two seed finding your place. Now you’re going to enter this year in a bigger role. But this off season teams inquire with the Rockets, ask about you. The Suns I I was told asked about you. you were made untouchable in those conversations. So, what do you feel when you hear that? What kind of motivation does it give you? How do you feel just about where you stand right now? Yeah, I think it’s I think it’s really cool. Um, you know, for me, this is my first year dealing with all the offseason, the trades. Um, so it’s kind of crazy seeing seeing all of it go down. Um, like you said, hearing some of that stuff is is pretty cool. It gives me a lot of confidence. Um, just going into the gym, uh, continue to work on everything I’ve been working on this summer. um just getting better and just really looking forward to the season and trying to help as much play as I can. Is that something like the GM tells you like, “Hey, listen, like a team called about you, but we’re not trading you.” Like, “You’re good. You’re untouchable.” Like, did you hear that verbatim? Uh, no, not really. Um, all right. So, I’m telling you, go now. You get to break that news. That’s why he’s smiling. See, this is I mean, I want that Monica, right? You’re you are untouchable as a player. You are one of the best shooters that we’ve seen. You were incredible last year. It was so much fun to watch you. Now, Kevin Durant’s on your team. Are you still the best shooter here on the Houston Rockets? I don’t know. I got to I got to I got to prove it a little bit first. Uh he’s proved it for a while. So, it’ll be fun to have some shooting competitions with him, though. Well, Reed, I want to give you your flowers cuz I’m a huge fan. Um I know about your 49 points in 37 minutes in the in the G-League cooking with no grease out there. But as great of a score as you are, I look at that roster. I look at Kevin Durant. I look at Jabari Smith. I look at Sanguin. I look at other guys that can put the basketball in the hole. You do not want to be a guy in this league that if he’s not making shots, we have to take him out the game. What are you looking to add to that team that if it’s a night where it’s not your night, it’s Kevin’s night, it’s Van Fleet night, it’s this guy’s night, what are you looking to add to make sure, hey, I’m still in rotation, I’m still going to help us win this basketball game and I’m going to prove that to the coaching staff. Yeah, for sure. I think the biggest thing this summer was getting in the weight room and uh defensively just working on defense like we had probably a two to three week stretch I was just my workouts were straight defense. Like I wasn’t touching a basketball the first 40 minutes. It wasn’t very fun, but you know, some things we got it done. So, like just working on that stuff. Um, you know, still getting up shots and ball handling and all that, but really just working on being stronger and uh being more physical. By the way, that footage we were just showing was from him cooking in the G- League in that game. You Donis, listen. And and I love that you’re working on your defense cuz I’m going to tell you a secret in this league. We pick on white shooters. No, we we do. We hunt you guys. We hunt you guys. You know this. We will hunt white shooters in the league and we’ll pick on you defensively. So I love that you working on defense all something. I never heard about that. You didn’t know that? 40 minutes. No, no. 40 minutes of just straight defense and workouts. I knew about that part. That sound like a man and do I’m not surprised with Can we get you Can we hit you with some quick hitters before we let you go here, Reed? We know you got some stuff to prepare for here. All right. I’m I’m wondering since we’re here in Las Vegas, nightclub, pool party, what’s the vibe? Pool party. It’s You got to have a pool here. Especially here. It’s 110° here in Las Vegas. If you needed a gamewinner, if you needed a walk-off shot, both your parents played college ball. You handing the rock to mom or you handing the rock to dad? I’m giving it to mom. There you ask. Shout out all the moms. Reed, we really really appreciate the time. Thank you so much for stopping by NBA today. Uh we wanted to Reed has has seen so many highlights from summer league, but now that it’s here, we thought we’d take a look back at some of the best plays of summer league all time and see what could be added to the collection here. first in 2007. This is Rudy Gay going baseline for the poster on the defender. Watch this. It’s grainy, but it’s good. Rudy Gay. [Music] That’s Wayne Xi. He used to play with us for a while. Damn. My bad, Wayne. And then we go to 2010 here. Jail McGee. Young J. That was nice. That was nice. And then this is 2019 here. Jackson Hayes with some hang time. I think I saw that line actually. Yeah, you don’t take charges in summer league. Next in 2012 here, Damen Lillard. We certainly hope he gets better soon. We should have known at this point game time was here. This shadow before he could afford a roll though. This before he could afford a rolling. Nothing wrong with a little starter watch, right? We go to 2016 here. D’s had some clutch shots too over his career. The This is a little foreshadowing. Do you look 2016 summer league was like the first enormous summer league ice in his veins. 2017 Jason Tatum shooting the gamewinning jumper and then he did the Kobe. Would you hit the Kobe in summer league? Did I do it? Could you do it in the celebration if you hit a big shot like that? All right, let’s go to 2012 here. Bag work. That’s like the Jeremy. That’s tough. That’s nice. That’s tough. That’s like a street ball move right there. 2010 Jr. Smith showing his hand. Tough layup. Put him in the blender. 2024. Man, man. This was nice, too. I saw this one. Yes, sir. I remember that one. That was insane. When the when the announcers are reacting like that, that’s when he knows. That’s when you know that you really got it. Uh Reed, what are you your just your mindset before we let you go officially heading into these summer league games? You’re about to suit up here coming up. Yeah, I think just coming out and playing with a lot of confidence. Um having fun, you know, this is this is so much fun being able to play in this environment. So just coming out having fun, just enjoying every minute of it. [Music] [Applause] Jimmy with the heat. I’m on fire on the

On NBA Today, Shams Charania, Bobby Marks and Udonis Haslem join Malika Andrews from the Summer League to discuss Cooper Flagg’s expectations ahead of his debut with the Dallas Mavericks. Then, Houston Rockets’ guard Reed Sheppard joins to discuss his new teammate Kevin Durant and more.

0:00 Summer League ticket prices
1:30 Cooper Flagg’s first impressions with Mavericks
4:00 How will Cooper fare in his Summer League debut?
5:55 Rockets’ guard Reed Sheppard joins

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