{"id":661761,"date":"2026-03-16T22:02:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/661761\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T22:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:02:20","slug":"how-kyrie-irving-helped-mavericks-rookie-cooper-flagg-through-early-season-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/661761\/","title":{"rendered":"How Kyrie Irving helped Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg through early-season struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Kyrie Irving recovers from a torn ACL<\/a>, the veteran guard has proven to be a valuable resource for Cooper Flagg.<\/a><\/p>\n

In a recent interview with ESPN\u2019s Malika Andrews, Flagg gave Irving credit for helping him through some early-season struggles. Throughout the 2025-26 campaign, Flagg has emerged as one of the NBA\u2019s top young players.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c[Irving] was that top pick and was kind of thrown into the fire. He stepped in as a great vet for me and was there kind of giving me guidance,\u201d the Mavericks\u2019 rookie star said. \u201cThere was definitely times where I was shaken up. I never lost that much in my life. Just to hear him say that and tell me that I\u2019m doing everything I need to be doing, just to stay with it and stay positive, it definitely helped me out a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flagg added that he has learned a lot about adversity this season. His main focus is on winning, but he\u2019s learned to find positives in every situation.<\/p>\n

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As the 2025-26 season winds down, Flagg has found himself in a tight race with former Duke teammate Kon Knueppel for the league\u2019s Rookie of the Year award. Flagg said it\u2019s \u201cincredible\u201d to share those rookie battles with another former Duke standout.<\/p>\n

Flagg described his meeting with Knueppel on Jan. 29<\/a> as one of his favorite games of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Kon better than a lot of people. I know what his work ethic is like. I know his drive and how much of a competitor he is,\u201d Flagg said.<\/p>\n

Flagg has appeared in 56 games for the Mavericks in his rookie campaign, averaging 20.2 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.4 assists.<\/p>\n

Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Kyrie Irving recovers from a torn ACL, the veteran guard has proven to be a valuable resource…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,225,686,149,4057,967,166,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-661761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cooper-flagg","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-dallasmavericks","13":"tag-kyrie-irving","14":"tag-mavericks","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116241114587213748","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661761","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=661761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}