{"id":126951,"date":"2025-06-26T19:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/126951\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T19:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T19:04:09","slug":"moms-take-centerstage-at-nba-draft-as-sons-appreciate-all-the-effort-theyve-put-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/126951\/","title":{"rendered":"Moms take centerstage at NBA draft as sons appreciate all the effort they\u2019ve put in"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 It was mother\u2019s day at the NBA draft<\/a> Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

The moms of the NBA draftees took centerstage, receiving hugs and wiping away tears as they heard their offspring\u2019s names called.<\/p>\n

Kelly Flagg, whose son Cooper went first to the Dallas Mavericks<\/a>, was a strong player in her own right. She starred for the University of Maine in the late 1990s. The 1998-99 team she was on made school history when it won the program\u2019s first NCAA Tournament game, upsetting Stanford.<\/p>\n

Asked what she helped instill in her son, Kelly Flagg said: \u201cI just hoped that he loved the game as much as we always have, and we\u2019re just thrilled that he did love it and he got to this moment. It\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mavericks<\/p>\n

Be the smartest Mavericks fan. Get the latest news.<\/p>\n

As far as the last time they played one-on-one, mom said the outcome wasn\u2019t a victory by her son.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a loss. It was a timeout in a game. It\u2019s just been an extended timeout,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Maria Harper also got the first hug from Dylan Harper after being taken at No. 2 by San Antonio. Appropriate because she coached his first AAU team and was an assistant on his high school team. She played Division I basketball herself with New Orleans between 1993 and 1996.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe means the world to me, coaching me from first grade to senior year,\u201d Dylan Harper said. \u201cFor her to see this moment, probably means the world to her. I love my mom and everything I do is definitely for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maria Harper echoed Kelly Flagg\u2019s sentiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis flat-out love for the game, his determination, his humility and his hard work day in and day out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

VJ Edgecombe<\/a>\u2019s mom was wiping at tears when they talked to ESPN.<\/p>\n

\u201cBimini to the world,\u201d Bendra Rolle said after her son went No. 3 to Philadelphia<\/a> and capped the family\u2019s journey from the Bahamas to the NBA.<\/p>\n

Thomas Sorber\u2019s mom had a much longer journey. Tenneh Sorber held a Liberian flag when she and her son were talking on TV after he was drafted by Oklahoma City. The pair shared a long embrace when his name was called.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all for you Mama. It\u2019s all for you Mama,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tenneh Sorber escaped the Liberian civil war in 1999 when she was 28.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a mom … I worked to get him where he is today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just the moms of the lottery picks who were ecstatic hearing their sons name called.<\/p>\n

Danny Wolf, who went 27th to the Brooklyn Nets, had mother Tina jumping for joy during his interview on ESPN. She buried her face in her hands when he was drafted.<\/p>\n

Find more NBA coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 It was mother\u2019s day at the NBA draft Wednesday night. The moms of the NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,2399,1529,225,686,149,4057,166,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-126951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-baylor-bears","10":"tag-colleges","11":"tag-cooper-flagg","12":"tag-dallas","13":"tag-dallas-mavericks","14":"tag-dallasmavericks","15":"tag-mavericks","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114751227045209155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}