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Flagg, who ran point guard at Mavericks coach Jason Kidd\u2019s urging, handled the Lakers picking him up at full court and bumping him when he tried to use his 6-foot-8 frame to get in the low post. He also found his athleticism translates even in the physical nature of Summer League, getting out in the open floor for an easy dunk and even trying a poster in traffic on Christian Koloko that came up short.<\/p>\n
The conversion or failure wasn\u2019t so much the thing. It was the audacity, the bounce.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t matter that he looked a bit parched as much as he was winded, taking 21 shots and not making a field goal in the second half of Dallas\u2019 87-85 win. He just looked like he belonged out there, and the gifts were evident.<\/p>\n
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For context, he took 22 shots just one time in 39 games at Duke. On Thursday, he finished with 10 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and 1 block \u2014 the block being a spectacular one in the game\u2019s final minutes, leading to the go-ahead triple that kept the Mavericks up for good.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get that ball in your hands, the conditioning aspect comes into play,\u201d Mavericks summer league coach Josh Broghamer said. \u201cThey were picking them up full court. They were trapping them. They’re being super physical, attention with him in the post, every time he drove it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The most telling physical exchange came with James bodying him up on consecutive plays, giving the crowd what they wanted to see. Despite his height advantage, Flagg couldn\u2019t move James, and James poked the ball away but was called for a foul.<\/p>\n
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Cooper Flagg and Bronny James went one-on-one in the first half of their Summer League game at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 10, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
(Ethan Miller via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Quick learner that he is, Flagg then caught the inbounds pass, recognized James was six inches shorter, rose and fired a true 21-footer on the left wing \u2014 much to the delight of his future teammates on the sideline, one being All-Star Kyrie Irving.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI was excited. I was a little nervous in the environment,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cBut I was just happy to be here.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fun, high energy, a lot of fans. Everybody showed up. It was an intense energy. That\u2019s how you look forward to it, that\u2019s why we play, those types of moments, those type of games.\u201d<\/p>\n
If everyone could\u2019ve spread out and watched Flagg and James go at it all game long, the crowd would\u2019ve been satisfied.<\/p>\n
James had his moments, too, and they were early \u2014 just like Flagg\u2019s. He hit two jumpers in the first two possessions with Flagg guarding him, one being a triple, to give this atmosphere even more of an AAU-buzz.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe\u2019s got, like, half a foot on me,\u201d James said. \u201cHe\u2019s great. I watched him in college, amazing player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the moment, Flagg said: \u201cI don’t know how tall he is, but a smaller guard like that on me, I gotta try and take advantage of (the) mismatch and the size advantage. So it wasn’t anything more than that, but it was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
James still played mostly off the ball and, to his reputation, was looking for his teammates in the crowd. He made some nifty passes and others were swallowed up by a quick defense. He didn\u2019t get up as many shots, and didn\u2019t hit another shot after those first two field goals. His last attempt, a step-back 3 with seconds left that could\u2019ve won the game for the Lakers, went awry.<\/p>\n
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James, like Flagg, could very well be in college right now. Flagg reclassified to get to Duke early and won\u2019t turn 19 until he has two months of real pro experience under his belt. James left USC early and could probably benefit with more reps at that level.<\/p>\n
Instead, they\u2019re in the big leagues figuring it out with the brightest lights the NBA can offer in the summer.<\/p>\n
Both had considerable rust. James didn\u2019t play big minutes in the California Classic last week and was ramping up to this showdown, finishing at 20 minutes. Flagg had been the assumed No. 1 pick for the last 12 months, so he didn\u2019t have to do much by way of workouts following his college season at Duke.<\/p>\n
It feels unlikely Flagg will go through the full slate of games in summer league. He got his taste of the NBA, and so did the NBA, getting its first look at, arguably, the next big thing.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI haven’t probably taken that many shots before, so that’s somewhat new,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cI’m gonna try and figure it out, but new experience. So I’m excited to keep playing move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 First, there were whispers, which turned to murmurs, which then elevated to a full-on buzz.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,1006,31,225,686,967,166,6,13711,26677],"class_list":{"0":"post-162436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bronny-james","10":"tag-christian-koloko","11":"tag-cooper-flagg","12":"tag-dallas","13":"tag-kyrie-irving","14":"tag-mavericks","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-summer-league","17":"tag-thomas-and-mack-center"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114832846864652850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162436","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=162436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}