{"id":693606,"date":"2026-04-02T09:54:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693606\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T09:54:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:54:21","slug":"mavericks-notes-flagg-kidd-cuban-williams-welts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693606\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks Notes: Flagg, Kidd, Cuban, Williams, Welts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cooper Flagg has lived up to the hype of being the No. 1 pick in last year\u2019s draft, but he admits the Mavericks\u2018 poor record has taken some of the joy out of his first NBA season, Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal<\/a> writes in a subscriber-only piece. Flagg played with dominant teams in high school and college, so it\u2019s been an adjustment to be part of a 24-52 Dallas squad that\u2019s far removed from the playoff race.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it\u2019s been tough,\u201d Flagg said Wednesday in an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show (Twitter video link<\/a>). \u201cI only lost four games last year [at Duke]. There\u2019s been times through the season where it\u2019s been mentally taxing on me, not having success that I would\u2019ve hoped for.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was reason to believe the Mavs might be at least a play-in contender at the start of the season with Flagg teaming with Anthony Davis in the front court and Kyrie Irving expected to return from a torn ACL around the All-Star break. However, Davis\u2019 continued injury issues led to a trade<\/a> to Washington in February, and Irving\u2019s comeback was delayed<\/a> until the fall.<\/p>\n

Flagg has still been brilliant overall and is locked in a tight race for Rookie of the Year honors with former Duke teammate Kon Knueppel. Afseth notes that he\u2019s just the fifth teenager in NBA history to average 20 points per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, we\u2019ve had a lot of injuries and unfortunate things happen throughout the year,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cIt\u2019s obviously not been ideal, but I\u2019ve had growth along the way, and I\u2019ve had to get better and learn on the fly. It\u2019s definitely not the start I would\u2019ve looked for, but hopefully I\u2019ll be able to look back on it and know that I was able to learn a lot from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more from Dallas:<\/p>\n

The controversy over trading Luka Doncic was revived on Tuesday during a podcast appearance<\/a> by former Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, per Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News<\/a> (subscription required). Among Cuban\u2019s comments was, \u201cThat doesn\u2019t justify it for our coach and our general manager to stand up and trade our best player.\u201d Coach Jason Kidd said he called Cuban in response, but declined to elaborate before Tuesday\u2019s game. \u201cWhen are we going to move on?\u201d Kidd asked.\u00a0\u201cWe have to move forward. We\u2019re focused on the present and the future and we\u2019ve got an incredible opportunity to build.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandon Williams displayed his full offensive game in the first half Tuesday by scoring 11 points in the first quarter and handing out six assists in the second quarter, states Mike Curtis of The Dallas Morning News<\/a>. The Mavs will face a decision this summer on the free agent guard, who has seen his role expand since Irving\u2019s injury. \u201cI think everybody knows that I can really score the ball and use my speed, as well, but just organizing the floor, getting the floor set up before I even make an attack is pretty much the main key,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI\u00a0have a Hall of Fame coach, so picking his brains, seeing what he sees and molding that into my game.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with Curtis, CEO Rick Welts talks about Flagg\u2019s rookie season, Kidd\u2019s future as head coach and his desire to have a new head of basketball operations in place before the draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooper Flagg has lived up to the hype of being the No. 1 pick in last year\u2019s draft,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-693606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-dallasmavericks","12":"tag-mavericks","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116334511410867727","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693606","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=693606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}