As the summer continues to roll on, the intrigue around the 2025-26 Dallas Mavericks will only continue to ramp up. That intrigue started at NBA Summer League, with Cooper Flagg’s debut against the Los Angeles Lakers and Bronny James. Now, as we sit just days away from the NBA releasing the schedule for the upcoming season, the cycle will begin all over again.
In that spirit, ESPN had their panel of insiders, writers, analysts and editors make their predictions for Cooper Flagg’s career ahead of his rookie season. The topics include team success, individual outcomes and yes, how many teams he will play for in his career. To the results!
Dallas will finish __ in the Western Conference in 2025-26
As you can tell by the results, expectations from a national perspective remain pretty low, all things considered. nearly 77% of respondents think that your Mavs will finish 7th or worse, with zero people thinking they will have homecourt in the playoffs. Personally, expecting this team to accomplish great things is only setting yourself up for disappointment. Their win total at the FanDuel Sportsbook is 38.5 for a reason.
Cooper Flagg, Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving will win __ playoff series’ together
A lot of differing opinions here, as no one answer received more than 31%. There seems to be more of a gap between those who think this experiment will work well, and those who think it will go poorly. Nearly two-thirds of respondents think they will win two or less series’ together, while a non-insignificant 15.4% think they will win four or more series. I’ll be on the low end personally.
How many teams does Cooper Flagg play on?
When the Mavericks drafted Luka Doncic in 2018, it was our dream to have him follow in the footsteps of the great Dirk Nowitzki. He got to spend his first year playing with Dirk in his last year, and he was there for every milestone along the way. Luka was there for it and wanted to experience the same for himself. And then it was Thanos snapped away from him and us in the dead of night. I have no doubt that the Mavericks fans will embrace Cooper, and that he will embrace you back. I just tend to believe that this organization will find a way to screw it all up, because history often repeats itself.
How many MVP awards will Flagg win?
The headliner here is that over 80% of respondents see Flagg winning one or fewer MVP. I don’t think this is unreasonable, as you look around the league and see who has MVP’s and who still will likely get awarded one. Just ask Luka Doncic how hard it is to win one of these things.
How many championships does Flagg win?
I appreciate the question, but it’s almost impossible to guess on this because you can’t possibly know what his team looks like around him. Let’s get audacious and give Cooper two rings.