The Dallas Mavericks were lucky enough to land the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft after trading Luka Doncic ahead of the deadline last year. Of course, with that selection, they landed former Duke Blue Devils standout Cooper Flagg.
Flagg has a legitimate chance to help the franchise move past the Doncic trade quickly. While Doncic is one of the best players in the NBA, Flagg has that same potential.
Heading into his rookie season, there is a ton of hype surrounding Flagg. He’s expected to make a major impact right off the bat.
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Quite a few different comparisons have been made for Flagg. Some believe that he could be a similar player to Kevin Garnett. Larry Bird is another name that has been thrown around at times, although he has a much difference skill-set. Another name connected to Flagg is Kawhi Leonard.
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Should he become anything close to those players, the Mavericks have their new franchise player already.
Most recently, an NBA analyst spoke out with a take inspired by Garnett.
Chris Broussard made an appearance on “First Things First” and spoke out with his thoughts. He revealed that he believes Flagg will be better offensively than Garnett was during his legendary career. For comparison, Garnett had a career average of 17.8 points per game.
“I think he’ll [Cooper Flagg] be a better scorer than Kevin Garnett,” Broussard said. “His offensive package is way better than KG’s when you compare those two. I think he is the truth.”
During his lone season at Duke, Flagg lived up to all of the hype. He led the Blue Devils on an NCAA Tournament run to the Final Four, but unfortunately came up short against the Houston Cougars in that game.
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In the 37 games he played for Duke, Flagg averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 blocks, and 1.4 steals per game, while shooting 48.1 percent from the floor and 38.5 percent from three-point range.
Jason Kidd is planning to try Flagg out at the point guard position. At 6-foot-9 and 205 pounds, that would give Dallas an extremely big lineup if the experiment pans out.
At just 18 years old, the sky is the limit for Flagg. The Mavericks have a potential superstar on their hands. It will be interesting to see what the 2025-26 NBA season has in store for the young forward.
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