Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg may have found a new fan in Barack Obama. The former US President showered praise on the young basketball player during the NBA All-Star Weekend. He expressed amazement at how Flagg and other young players cultivated a strong presence within the basketball league despite their youth.<\/p>\n
Barack Obama appreciates Cooper Flagg<\/p>\n
Barack Obama recently attended the NBA All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles with his wife Michelle. He inadvertently became a highlight of the event after catching a ball that went off the court. Notably, this move seemingly protected the latter<\/a>, momentarily shaken by the ball coming in at high speed.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n While speaking at a press conference, the 64-year-old highlighted three young players he was impressed by: Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, and VJ Edgecombe. He noted that players like them held \u201cso much poise and experience\u201d (via HITC<\/a>).<\/p>\n He said of Flagg, \u201cHe\u2019s a baby. You can tell the guy\u2019s barely shaven. And he\u2019s out there doing what he\u2019s doing.\u201d Obama continued, \u201c[Kon] Knueppel? Unbelievable. [VJ] Edgecombe. So you\u2019ve got these young folks who are now performing at levels that I think we\u2019ve never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n Moreover, at the conference, Obama suggested a major change to the NBA\u2019s regular-season structure. He advised owners of various leagues to reduce the number of scheduled games from 82 to 72. Obama reasoned players were playing at \u201ca much faster pace\u201d today, unlike 20 years earlier, stressing he was uncertain if injuries could be avoided at the current pace.<\/p>\n Flagg, the Dallas Mavericks\u2019 first overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft, already amassed several achievements. At just 18 years old, during the Mavericks\u2019 match against the Milwaukee Bucks, he scored a career-high 26 points. Thus, he tied with LeBron James<\/a> as the youngest player to score at least 25 points in an NBA game. The following night, he surpassed James by scoring a career-high 35 points during the Mavericks\u2019 114-110 win over the Los Angeles Clippers. In addition, he became the only player after James to score 30+ points in a game before turning 19.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Later, on December 25, 2025, during the Mavericks\u2019 match against the Golden State Warriors, where they suffered a 126-116 loss, Flagg recorded 27 points, six rebounds, and five assists. Consequently, he became the third rookie to record at least 25 points, five rebounds, and five assists on a Christmas Day game, preceded by Oscar Robertson (1960) and Pete Maravich (1970).<\/p>\n Originally reported by Abdul Azim Naushad on Mandatory<\/a><\/p>\n The post Mavericks\u2019 Rookie Gets Stamp of Approval From Barack Obama<\/a> appeared first on Reality Tea<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg may have found a new fan in Barack Obama. The former US President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3793],"tags":[17229,7,225,686,149,4057,164,968,185,251,135,166,121,6,490,971],"class_list":{"0":"post-611262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-cooper-flagg","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-dallas-mavericks","13":"tag-dallasmavericks","14":"tag-golden-state-warriors","15":"tag-kon-knueppel","16":"tag-lebron-james","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","19":"tag-mavericks","20":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-the-mavericks","23":"tag-vj-edgecombe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116096422656256629","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611262","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=611262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}