Cooper Flagg is the strange NBA prospect that would fit a lot in any team. FlagG showed that it can excel in a high -use role in the offensively duration of its only season in Duke, but not needle The ball to have an impact. Maine’s native built reputation as a generational talent for everything that makes the ball, with phenomenal instincts as a help defender and a sixth forced sense of losses
Even so, some organizations were better prepared to build around Flagg than others that enter the NBA Draft Lottery of 2025. The idea that the Dallas Mavericks win the NO lottery. 11 Spot with 1.8 percent was almost too far -fetched to entertain. Now it is a reality.
The shocking victory of the Mavericks in the lottery is sending the NBA to a tail turn. Dallas was the NBA laughter after his horrible trade of Luka Doncic, causing a revolt within the fan base, while the main executive Nico Harrison became the biggest objective in sports. The MAVs are now configured with an equally better face of the franchise than Doncic, but the arrival of Flagg also brings many difficult questions.
The teams that “win” choice No. 1 are the usual buildings with the future in mind. Instead, Dallas is already totally in the present. Most of their future Draft teams changed to build around Doncic, and after Harrison decided to change it, Dallas is now in a couple of older veterans in Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis. Irving broke his ACL shortly after Doncic’s trade, and all next season will be lost.
Harrison rethink his reputation in the exchange of Doncic-Davis, saying “time will say if I’m right.” Instead, the lottery results rescued him before the League had the opportunity to find out. We have so many teams that run a generational talent in NO. 1 in the draft before. Here is a road map on how the MAVs should act after going to Flagg.
Fire Nico Harrison
It is necessarily something bad that Nico Harrison has a great ego. Hey, he would probably never have risen to his position of power in Nike or with the MAVs without believing so completely in his own great vision. After winning the Lottery for Flagg, he thought, Harrison Theatens’s ego to undermine the best long -term interests of his new franchise star.
The MAVs should have fired Harrison before doing the Doncic for Davis Swap. He should have triggered the disastrous results of an exchange that led Dallas from the NBA finals to the lottery at the end of the season. Somehow, everything worked for MAV fans, but the only way to build around Flagg is to start shooting Harrison.
Harrison’s heels are too excavated to make odd decisions. This is now the Flagg franchise, and its two best teammates in Davis and Irving do not fit their timeline. Harrison said he made Doncic’s exchange because he thought he increased the probabilities of the MAV championship for this season. Obviously, that exploded completely on his face. At this point, Dallas needs to divert his present flaed and prioritize his future. Harrison is too partial to be confident to do that.
Anthony Davis
The best movement of the MAVs was exchanging Anthony Davis from the moment Irving fell with injuries. Irving will turn 34 in March, and it is likely to remain out of play until then while rehabilitating its LC tear. Davis is not spring chicken at age 32, and deserves to spend the end of his best game for a contender. Dallas, also with Flagg, will not seriously compete for anything next season with Marginated Kyrie.
Davis has two more seasons under contract plus a player option for $ 62.7 million in 2027-28. It is difficult to say how the market would look for a star prone to injuries at its age, but hey, we only saw that Davis is changed by Luka Freakin ‘Doncic, so maybe its value in the league does not doubt. Leaving Davis for future assets would give the MAVs more ammunition to build a great team when Flagg is at its best. That will not happen for years for a player who does not turn 19 until December.
The idea of trade by Davis was very bold at that time. It was a failure once Irving was injured, and will never have a better commercial value again than at this time.
Start to rebuke the long -term asset base
The MAVs do not control their first-round draft selection of 2027-2030. Dallas’s selection of 2027 was sent to Charlotte for PJ Washington, the Thunder have exchange rights in their 2028 selection, the 2029 selection will be exchanged with Houston or Brooklyn, and 2030 is OED to San Antonio or Minnesota. Dallas has an additional choice of the Lakers in 2029 of Luka’s trade, but that is not enough to build around a player like Flagg.
In a possible advertising trade, Dallas should obviously be looking for selections and young players. The MAVs have the benefit of the bars selections in the future because Flagg is very young, and they can always exchange those selections for players as Flagg develops.
The last time the MAVs landed a generational talent in Doncic, they rushed to exchange selections for Kristaps porzingis to give Luka the opportunity to win early in their mandate. Harrison did a phenomenal job when leaving that agreement, starting with the Irving trade, the right -hand selection, signings of free agents such as Derrick Jones Jr. and Sub -Avisos agreements for Washington and Daniel Gafford.
Dallas does not need to do things so difficult this time. They should try to obtain as much snacks possible in the Apple, partly because future selections can be possible for FlagG to be a co -star that fits its timeline.
The MAVs must prioritize Flagg and Lively on the front court. They should see flyers in young offensive guards that other teams could rule out for their defensive limitations (Flagg and Lively can handle the defense). Players like Gafford and Washington should also be turned to obtain assets, and make sense to exchange Irving once it shows that it is healthy.
Flagg grew a fan of Boston Celtics. Dallas was spoiled with the loyalty of Dirk Nowitzki, and surely, as a maid, he also wanted to spend his entire career there. They are not in which it happens again with flagg. If the MAVs cannot build a winner around them, it seems more likely to look for another team that will do it in an exchange or free agency. Flagg’s disaster scenario signing with the Celtics at the beginning of their best moment should scare the MAVs prioritizing their future now instead of Harrison’s ego.
The MAVs made a very myopic exchange in treating Doncic. They cannot do the same Fog Flagg, and that begins with shooting Nico and building for the best moment of Flagg at the expense of any current nucleus of this lever is Horth.