{"id":607690,"date":"2026-02-17T07:16:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T07:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/607690\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T07:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T07:16:15","slug":"southwest-notes-flagg-irving-durant-coward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/607690\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Notes: Flagg, Irving, Durant, Coward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cooper Flagg<\/a> appeared at Saturday\u2019s game between Duke and Clemson with a boot on his left foot, but league sources tell Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Substack link<\/a>) that the Mavericks believe they\u2019re lucky that his midfoot sprain<\/a> is not a more severe injury\u00a0.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still no specific timeline for how long Flagg will be out as a result of the injury, according to Stein, who says the more pressing concern for the team is how to keep the star rookie\u2019s energy and enthusiasm up through what is likely the longest losing streak of his basketball life.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks lost their last nine games prior to the All-Star break, which Stein notes is the team\u2019s longest losing streak since the 1997\/98 season. At No. 12 in the Western Conference, Dallas is currently two games up on the Jazz and 1.5 games behind the Grizzlies, who have embarked on their own rebuild after trading Jaren Jackson Jr.<\/a> to Utah.<\/p>\n

With Jackson out for the rest of the season following knee surgery<\/a> and Utah owing its pick to the Thunder if it falls outside of the top eight, it will be worth keeping an eye on just how quickly Dallas brings the productive Flagg.<\/p>\n

We have more from around the Southwest Division:<\/p>\n

Kyrie Irving<\/a> announced<\/a> on Saturday that he will soon be giving an update on whether or not he plans to return for the Mavericks this season. While it would be beneficial for Dallas\u2019 draft outlook for Irving to sit the rest of the season, Stein\u2019s sources tell him that the decision will ultimately be a collaborative one between Irving and the team, as he writes in his latest Substack article. The decision will depend in part on whether the star point guard feels like his body needs more time to recover or whether he wants to try to work some rust off in-season.
\nIn the midst of his 18th season in the league, Kevin Durant<\/a> is more concerned with making sure he remembers all the moves in his arsenal than adding new ones to it, Varun Shankar writes for the Houston Chronicle<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s so much I\u2019m thinking about. I don\u2019t want to forget some stuff in my package and it goes away,\u201d Durant said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t use it, you lose it.\u201d Shankar details the Rockets\u2018 star\u2019s meticulous pregame workouts, including the balance drills designed to engage his legs. When it comes to a bad workout, assistant coach Royal Ivey puts it bluntly. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen one,\u201d he said.
\nCedric Coward<\/a> has gone from mystery box draft prospect to breakout player for the Grizzlies, starting 35 of the 48 games he\u2019s played this season with averages of 13.3 points and 6.2 rebounds per contest. He recently sat down with Kevin O\u2019Connor of Yahoo Sports<\/a> to talk about his rookie year and what improvements come next. When asked about lessons taken away from being guarded by some of the league\u2019s premier defenders, Coward spoke to a late-game situation against the Thunder and Alex Caruso<\/a>. \u201cJust keep it simple. The biggest moment I learned that was when we played Oklahoma City at home,\u201d Coward said. \u201cLast possession, Caruso put me in a box. And I was too complicated in what I was trying to do, so for me, I wish I could get that moment back, I know I\u2019ll have that moment again \u2014 it might not be against Caruso, but I know the moment will come again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooper Flagg appeared at Saturday\u2019s game between Duke and Clemson with a boot on his left foot, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[7,3522,225,294,938,967,293,177,4070,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-607690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cedric-coward","10":"tag-cooper-flagg","11":"tag-grizzlies","12":"tag-kevin-durant","13":"tag-kyrie-irving","14":"tag-memphis","15":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","16":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","17":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116084748399899450","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607690","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=607690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}