{"id":204772,"date":"2025-07-31T08:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T08:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/204772\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T08:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T08:34:10","slug":"mavericks-are-giving-duke-legend-cooper-flagg-too-much-to-handle-no-one-to-blame-but-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/204772\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks are giving Duke legend Cooper Flagg too much to handle, no one to blame but themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dallas Mavericks surprisingly landed the first overall pick in June’s NBA Draft. In a stunning move, they traded away Luka Doncic and received Cooper Flagg as his replacement. The Mavericks couldn\u2019t contain their excitement, prematurely revealing their intention to draft the Duke standout.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDLLS Mavericks reporter Kevin Gray posted on X a screenshot from Mavs’ official website that displayed Flagg in Dallas’ white home jersey \u2013 part of a premature \u2018Welcome to Dallas\u2019 graphic that was quickly removed from the team’s site,\u201d Yahoo Sports\u2019 Jeremy Beren wrote.<\/p>\n

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Cleveland Cavaliers guard Lonzo Ball believes Flagg may be miscast in the Mavericks\u2019 lineup<\/a>, noting that he won\u2019t be playing his natural position.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s NBA, I would play him at the four. [Cooper at the three] it would depend. It\u2019s all a matchup. Like whoever they are playing against. Because if I play him at the three and then I got Gafford or Lively in, with Davis too, like we better get every rebound. And defense. Like, hit the glass hard. But then if I want to play small ball, I\u2019ll push him to the four. Put AD at the five,\u201d Ball said.<\/p>\n

USA Today\u2019s Lorenzo Reyes suggested that for the Mavericks to thrive during the season, Flagg needed to struggle in Summer League.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, The Smoking Cuban\u2019s Tyler Watts argued that Dallas is placing too much pressure on Flagg too early.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Dallas Mavericks are asking too much from Cooper Flagg. Fans should temper expectations for his rookie season. Flagg is a generational prospect and will be a standout for years to come, but year one will feature struggles as he adjusts to the NBA and being a primary creator. The Mavs have nobody to blame but themselves,\u201d Watts wrote.<\/p>\n

Flagg enters the season under an intense spotlight, with some already calling him the future face of the league\u2014before he\u2019s even played a game. There\u2019s no doubt that Flagg will likely be in a league of his own someday, but expecting that in year one may be a bit premature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks surprisingly landed the first overall pick in June’s NBA Draft. In a stunning move, they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,193,225,149,6789,4442,4312,368,6,490],"class_list":{"0":"post-204772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","10":"tag-cooper-flagg","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-gafford","13":"tag-lonzo-ball","14":"tag-lorenzo-reyes","15":"tag-luka-doncic","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-the-mavericks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114946930422795637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204772","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=204772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}