LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Cooper Flagg is so good at basketball that he skipped a grade in high school and played just one season of college ball at Duke. And even though he won't turn 19 until December, he was an easy choice for the Dallas Mavericks when they drafted No. 1 overall in last month's 2025 NBA Draft.
He's that good. And that hyped, probably the most-hyped rookie since LeBron James in 2003.
Flagg made his professional debut Thursday night in the Las Vegas Summer League. He took a lot of shots (21), which is fine, but didn't make many (5), which isn't so fine. The Mavericks beat the Los Angeles Lakers 87-85, which doesn't matter one bit.
All that matters was that the Cooper Flagg era has begun. A national TV audience watched on ESPN, and tickets were being scalped like crazy here in Vegas for $500 or more.
The show has begun.
Flagg wasn't at all impressed with his performance, but at least was out there, getting things rolling. This is very much just a start.
“I couldn’t really get into a rhythm, it’s a different environment, obviously very different from college, and it’s probably very different from what the real NBA is gonna be like,” Flagg said at the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campius after the game. “The coaches had a lot of confidence in me. They’ve been telling me they want me to experiment, try some new things, and I was trying to be aggressive, and that’s new for me too.
“I would say that might be one of the worst games in my life, but we got the win, that’s what really matters to me. It's just a different game. Different pace, different feel, different spacing. It's a lot of adjustments,It wasn't up to my standard, but I’m going to improve. I’m going to be all right.
I'm sure he will be, but being just ''all right'' is never going to be enough for this kind. He's been being talked about since dominating high school ball in Maine, and then leading Montverde Academy in Florida to prep national champiionships.
And in college, he was the man, even at a school like Duke that knows all about producing superstars and No. 1 picks. All eyes were on him last year, and he didn't disappoint, Duke went 35-4 last year, won the ACC with a 19-1 record and won the ACC conference tournament as well.
It ended with a disappointing loss to Houston in the national semifinals at the Final Four, but there was still no doubt he was ready for the next step. And when the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Draft Lottery despite having just a 1.8 percent chance of doing so, now all the talk is of Flagg joining a team of veterans that could contend for an NBA title in his first year.
They have roster full of future Hall of Famers. Most first-overall picks don't get that luxury, Hell, none of them do, outside of maybe Tim Duncan, when he joined the Spurs in 1997 and proceeded to win five titles.
So far, everyone around the Mavericks is thoroughly impressed with the kid, which is absolutely no surprise at all.
“I think Cooper’s done an incredible job with all the minutes,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd told ESPN’s Malika Andrews at halftime of the network's broadcast. “He’s handled the ball, he’s gotten wide-open shots for teammates, he’s finished, I think you’ve seen a lot of what he can do in this league.”
Former Mavericks majority owner Mark Cuban gushes about the kid, too.
“He didn’t try to do too much and say hey, I’m the No. 1 pick and I’m going to show you why,'' Cuban said. “He played basketball. And he's only 18. My daughter just graduated high school last month and he’s younger than her.”
Flagg was the 79th player picked first overall in the NBA Draft since it started in 1947. Greatness is expected, but that's often the case with No.1 picks. Many turn out great, many others are busts.
I have my list of the 10 greatest No. 1 overall picks. They are, in chronological order:
You'll notice that James is the most recent No. 1 overall pick on my list — and that was 22 years ago. The challenge for Flagg is to be on that list when someone far younger than me makes a new list 20 years from now.
Will he be that kind of generational talent? Will he be one of the best to ever play the game?
I have no clue. The odds are against it as much as they are for it. We know NBA history, the good and the bad of it all.
But this we know for sure. Most everyone in the game seems to be rooting for this kid. There's nothing to dislike about his game. He's got every skill. And there's nothing to dislike about his personality or work ethic. He comes from a great family, and everyone at Duke raved about him.
We can't determine his greatness right now though, not in the dead of summer in Las Vegas. All we know was that it was great to see him on the floor Thursday night, and the gym was electric, even for a summer league game.
It will be that way again on Saturday, too, when they take on the San Antonio Spurs at 4 p.m. ET. (TV: ESPN). The presumption is that he'll play every game here in Vegas, and the Mavericks are also scheduled to play on Monday and Wednesday, at the very least.
He has our attention already. And this we know for sure. That's not changing anytime soon.
Tom Brew is the publisher of Fastbreak on SI.