{"id":217165,"date":"2025-08-07T06:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T06:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/217165\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T06:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T06:02:11","slug":"duke-star-cooper-flaggs-future-at-risk-as-mavericks-win-now-plan-centers-on-kyrie-irving-anthony-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/217165\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke star Cooper Flagg’s future at risk as Mavericks’ win-now plan centers on Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Duke star Cooper Flagg’s future at risk as Mavericks’ win-now plan centers on Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

The Dallas Mavericks lucked out when they won the NBA Draft Lottery. It came after they were just one win away from making the playoffs. Everyone assumed the Mavericks were going to pick Cooper Flagg with the first overall pick, but to make it even clearer, they announced it on their site before the draft.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\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

Flagg enters the season with high expectations, but he finds himself in a strange position with the Mavericks. Not many No. 1 picks join a championship-contending team right away. Flagg may need to fail before he and the Mavericks can succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Flagg to excel, he\u2019ll need to lean into that exploratory work. And for the Mavericks to also excel, they would be wise \u2014 at least early on \u2014 to let him fail,\u201d USA Today\u2019s Lorenzo Reyes wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n

Some believe the Mavericks are asking too much of the rookie, despite the naturally high expectations.<\/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 The Smoking Cuban\u2019s Tyler Watts wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Mavericks are in a tough spot\u2014they need to build around Flagg\u2019s future, but they are in win-now mode. This could be disastrous for Flagg\u2019s long-term development.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, Dallas finding win-now assets could affect the long-term future of the team in hopes of trying to build around Flagg. It’s a balancing act that won’t be easy to navigate,\u201d The Smoking Cuban\u2019s Jeremy Brener wrote.<\/p>\n

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With more veterans than young players on the team, the Mavericks present a dangerous environment for Flagg. He may end up going through the rookie development process in reverse\u2014his first few years could go well, but the typical rookie struggles might come later, instead of sooner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Duke star Cooper Flagg’s future at risk as Mavericks’ win-now plan centers on Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis originally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,225,149,4312,6,490],"class_list":{"0":"post-217165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cooper-flagg","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-lorenzo-reyes","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-the-mavericks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114985968884600925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217165","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=217165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}