Cooper Flagg: Possibility.
In staking a claim to history, the Mavericks rookie continues to find his footing in the NBA.
While it is no new phenomenon, pro sports and their oft-impossible expectations, the feet of young players put directly in the fire, even from a distance, for Cooper Flagg, it must have appeared a mountain that was all but insurmountable.
Although that isn’t to suggest, by any means, that he was unable to climb it.
Coming out of Duke, not only had he already lived up to the promise put upon him as a one-and-done college star, in doing so, he proved he possessed both the talent and required mental fortitude to step directly into the NBA: this, while being, if on the expected learning curve, not immediately overmatched either (itself, a rarer combination than one can be lead to believe).
Rather, it was the shoes Flagg was, in more than one way, being asked to fill.
When the Dallas Mavericks moved face-of-the-franchise Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers this past February in what was then and continues to be, with each passing day, one of most straight up baffling trades in NBA history, it signalled an abrupt end of an era for the team.
Not only was Dončić, nigh seamlessly, the heir apparent to Dirk Nowitzki, on his own terms, he had established himself as one of the very best players in basketball - perhaps even, on any given night, the best - an All NBA fixture with one of the most complete offensive profiles currently on record and just entering the apex of his prime years. Traded, as he was, for reasons that are still somewhat unclear, an intersection of corporate politics, personal grudges and evidently, an inability by the corner office decision makers to truly separate the two.
Though as the Mavericks all but imploded in the aftermath, be it, after just 20 games over two seasons, having returning trade centrepiece Anthony Davis already be the subject of widespread trade rumours or now former GM Nico Harrison, the architect of the Dončić deal, being mercifully - finally - sent packing last month, when the smoke came to clear at American Airlines Center?
The simple reality was, so the discontent can reach Corpus Christi if it wishes, the games still need to be played.
Jerseys, still needing to be sold, season ticket packages, now meekly delivered. Hope, if reluctantly propped by a beleaguered social team, ever to require some semblance of actionable merit.
Enter Flagg.
Serendipitously taken first overall by Dallas in the draft just months later, thanks to luck-of-the-draw in long shot lottery odds and if not entirely earned in the same way, given the hot stove fuelling circumstances that preceded his arrival, hoisted upwards by lub and city both.
A moderately-sized forward, built for the modern game: touch from mid-range and three, while pairing a playmaker’s eye with a presence on the boards. Not Dončić nor anyone else, in a sense that any steps forward would be, for better or worse on a bottom third Mavs team, exclusively his own.
And yet, for all the nitrous-fuelled takes that have landed in his orbit over the season’s first quarter, as he continues to learn the rhythms of pro ball in real time, it bears remembering that growth often arrives with rain, not waves.
Though as he made his own particular piece of history earlier this week in the Maverick’s Monday night contest versus Utah, his 42 points, the most ever scored by an 18 year old in NBA history?
It seemed a wave indeed.
Now, one would be no doubt jumping the gun if they suddenly presumed Flagg to be two steps removed from evolving into a nightly 40-point threat but as the calendar prepares to turn over to 2026, Flagg has found a rhythm that would’ve seemed possible if unlikely just a few weeks ago.
Consider, as of this writing, December 17th:
Averaging 18.4/6.3/3.5 across his first 26 games, Flagg is steadily being relied upon in more in wire-to-wire situations: not just at the line, where he went 15 for 20 on Monday but with 12 of his 42 coming in the fourth quarter (apart of his 42/7/6 finish, even as Dallas, ultimately, lost to Utah 140-133 in overtime).
With an average of 25.7 points over his past seven, Flagg has put something of a stamp on his hard-earned momentum, as he recently secured the top spot in the NBA’s rookie race for the first time.
With both Davis continuing to battle injury (prior to Monday’s game, he was ruled out with leg contusion) and Kyrie Irving rehabbing a previously torn ALC (if with reporting from Spots Illustrated in mid-November suggesting his recovery timeline has become far longer than initially projected), Flagg has, at least for now, begun moving beyond top prospect status towards a first option role. He’ll turn 19 on December 21st.
The bigger question, of course, is just how the rest of Flagg’s initial foray into pro ball will go: in navigating the doldrums of winter on a lottery team more currently attuned in building for what could be instead of what is.
Though if the results of his statement game can be taken as any indiction, it will be with an embracing of the spotlight that has followed him since his time in North Carolina.
Wherever it leads.