It’s not terribly fair, is it, to ask an 18-year-old to launder the reputation of our most distressed pro sports team?
That’s what Cooper Flagg, now officially the top overall pick of the 2025 NBA Draft, must do for the Dallas Mavericks, in so many words. Mind you, every prospect of his ilk faces some version of that challenge. Rare is the team that picks first overall when things are going well. They are all looking to be saved from something. Maybe it’s momentary mediocrity, like San Antonio landing Tim Duncan after David Robinson missed the better part of a season due to injury. More commonly it’s ongoing haplessness, the sort Flagg escaped by not winding up in Washington or Charlotte, who had far better odds than Dallas of winning the draft lottery.
In the Mavericks’ case, the problem is management. That hasn’t changed in nearly five months since the inexplicable Luka Doncic trade, even if the worst PR gaffes are on hold. As Jake Kemp wrote yesterday, the roster is “deep in sunk cost coupled with historic fortune,” a series of incongruities that can only take Dallas so far in a loaded Western Conference. It would be problematic enough if that were solely a byproduct of one of the worst transactions in sports history. Instead, the Mavericks are here because they made a second horrible trade days later and now are leaning into obstinance instead of turning over the roster to fully rebuild around Flagg.
The coaching staff, meanwhile, is splintering. Sean Sweeney, Jason Kidd’s longtime consigliere, took a lateral move with the Spurs because, according to the Morning News’ Brad Townsend, the Mavericks “just didn’t do enough to keep him” despite Sweeney wanting to stay in Dallas. There are murmurs of other assistants joining him, a casualty of several coaches not receiving contract extensions following the 2024 NBA Finals run. Unsurprisingly, per the Dallas Hoops Journal’s Grant Afseth, none of this is sitting terribly well internally. This comes on the heels of Kidd’s recent dalliance with the New York Knicks. Dallas refused to grant an interview, but it became A Thing because the team couldn’t muster up a competent, timely messaging strategy.
Then there’s the medical staff, which underwent major turnover for the second time in three years after the Mavericks weathered a rash of injuries that, at one point last season, had the team down to the league-minimum eight healthy players. Far more damning was its internal dysfunction, which ESPN’s Tim MacMahon reported came to a head in a shouting match between director of health and performance Johann Bilsborough and recently dismissed athletic performance director Keith Belton over the handling of prized young center Dereck Lively. (The 21-year-old was being ramped up to return from a short injury layoff, only for the team to discover that he had a stress fracture in his ankle. Lively would sit out the next three months recovering from that injury.) Would this be as big of a story had Nico Harrison not publicly praised that group as “better” than the previous regime led by Casey Smith, widely regarded as one of basketball’s best in his role, who now works for the Knicks? Who’s to say. But Harrison did just that in a bizarre invite-only, camera-free media session in April, a month before Smith’s staff in New York was named the NBA’s best training staff.
And, of course, there is Harrison’s continued employment, despite chants of “Fire Nico” ringing out at the Mavericks’ own draft party; despite basketball people reportedly chatting about how he’ll never work in the sport again when his time in Dallas is up; despite everything.
Cooper Flagg cannot fix all of this on his own, because no player could. But he is better equipped than most to try, and so he’ll inevitably be expected to. Look no further than the Mavericks’ bottom line. Before the Mavericks’ lottery win, MacMahon reported the franchise was on track to lose nine-figure money “over the next several years.” In the three days after the lottery, the team reaped between $7 million and $8 million in new season ticket sales, depending on the source.
Flagg represents hope for a team that was mostly hopeless. Josh Bowe had ample reason in March to write a piece titled “The Worst Is Yet to Come for the Mavericks.” Flagg isn’t a physical marvel like Victor Wembanyama or Zion Williamson. Rather, Flagg’s potential might be less limited by his own weaknesses than any player since LeBron James. There are no holes in his game. He can pass and drive, shoot and finish, defend help side or play man up. He can battle power forwards just as capably as he’ll slide into backcourt, the way he’ll be required to on this big man-heavy unit. He can be anything he wants and anything his team needs.
That kind of player would elevate any roster. But it is hard to imagine across-the-board competence mattering more than it will for an organization that has failed in so many ways in such a short period of time. Last night won’t change the fact that the Dallas Mavericks have a long way to go both on the floor and away from it. They will continue to struggle more than they should, often for self-inflicted reasons. They will still, for a while, be less than they could and should have been as recently as early February.
Except now there is something else—someone else—to focus on. You will not first think of public relations disasters or internal upheaval or the most despised personnel man west of the Mississippi once Cooper Flagg starts running good. You’ll instead see control. Poise. Precision. Basketball gears turning in perfect order. He will hoist a shaky organization onto steadier ground. And once Flagg runs great? Well, there will be no forgetting the Doncic trade. There could be less wincing about it, though, the way Jalen Brunson’s departure stung less after Kyrie Irving arrived.
The sooner the Mavericks take on Flagg’s identity, the better things get. That’s not how it’s supposed to be on a roster featuring a trio of future Hall of Famers in Irving, Anthony Davis, and Klay Thompson. Teenagers are meant to learn, grow, acclimate. Having those veterans in place will allow Flagg to do more of that on the court than most top picks, but too much has happened for that same grace period to apply off the court. The Mavericks desperately need a reboot, and Flagg is it.
So the child shall lead them all, whether or not he’s ready, whether or not it’s fair. He’ll repair what he can, and whatever that amounts to must be enough. Not every sunrise is brighter than the last. But they always beat the hell out of darkness.
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Mike Piellucci
Mike Piellucci
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Mike Piellucci is D Magazine's sports editor. He is a former staffer at The Athletic and VICE, and his freelance…