CNN
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Dallas Mavericks fans have spent the last few months in something like a rebellion against the team’s front office after franchise icon Luka Doncic was traded for the Los Angeles Lakers.
On Monday, all of that could have been incredibly messy water under the bridge.
The Mavs won the NBA lottery, got the first pick in the draft, and got the opportunity to replace Doncic with the Duke Phenom Cooper Flag. Entering the night with 1.8% shots on 1.8% shots, the Mavericks may have been lucky to have one of the best draft shocks in sports history.
Think about this. During the post-trade period, the Mavericks went 14-21, losing the main player they received, Anthony Davis, over the course of weeks due to injuries in their first game with the team, and losing Talisman Killie Irving to a season-ending ACL injury, and seeing the killing of other players. Davis returned as MAVS tried to score a spot in the NBA playoffs through Play-In Round, but ultimately ran out.
All the while, fans demanded the firing of contract architect General Manager Nico Harrison, sending Doncic to Angels City, and critics declared that the Mavericks had just made a move that could kill the franchise. Doncic, just 26 years old, led his team to the NBA Finals before the season and was selected for the All-NBA, who was in the league every year and entered Prime. All reports on the deal show that Doncic never planned to leave Dallas, and his emotional return to Texas showed that the pain of surprise movements still remains for him.
Overall, it was shaped to become a disaster of historic proportions. How far will the franchise sink after placing hope on the aging core shoulders of frequently injured players and then seeing the franchise’s expected cornerstone link to LeBron James and the Lakers?
I don’t think we’ll ever know.
The imminent arrival of the flag – a widely anticipated top pick in the draft, unless Dallas and Harrison decide to shock the basketball world again – means that the Mavericks will replace Doncic with one of the game’s brightest young talents.
In Duke, Flag sometimes seemed to play a different game than the opposition. Even if he was among the youngest players in the country, there was little he could have done. He didn’t turn 18 until the season was already underway. He averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.2 steel in 37 games, losing to the University of Houston in the men’s final four in the final minutes.
His trophy cases for a year at a college game are phenomenal. He was awarded the Nysmith Award as a top player in college basketball and was awarded the National Player of the Year by five of the six organizations that handed out the honors. He was ACC Player of the Year, ACC Rookie of the Year, the first team’s national consensus, and an outstanding player in the Eastern Region as the Blue Devils steam appeared towards the Final Four.
“As you all know, it’s been a tough year,” Mavericks ambassador and four-time NBA All-star Roland Blackman said in an ESPN interview after the lottery. “We get the opportunity to move the franchise forward… It’s a really, really a great honor and I want to flip it over in Dallas, so that’s an important part of the puzzle.”
Blackman said Flag “can do hoops, he can play,” and said, “There are a lot of great players in that draft class… We’ll see how we can get together and make our team better.
A great two-way player, Flaggg hopes to bring Harrison’s often repeated pledge to the Doncic trade. Doncic’s relative lack of defensive power was the main reason Harrison publicly justified the trade, but post-trade reports revealed questions about his fitness, commitment and team staff who helped drive the wedge between the Slovenian star and the Mavs.
Doncic was absolutely loved by the Mavericks fanbase. “He belonged to us,” Dallas fan John Tarrant told CNN Sports earlier this year. It’s hard to imagine Flagg completely replacing the 6-foot-6-inch, 230-pound, Doncic-shaped gap in the hearts of Mavs fans. At least soon.
However, his expected arrival at the Metroplex could begin to subdue one of the most turbulent periods for any recent memory team. It is enough to give a collective case of whiplash to the entire city.
And for Harrison, the source of the city’s rage, the person who took responsibility for the Doncic trade and became one of the most ridiculed executives in the sport suddenly seems like an insane gambling might have been rewarded. If you notice that the Mavericks are making deep playoff runs in a year or two, the fighting GM will probably say to someone in the ear hair removal: “I told you!”
It is a fair question whether he deserves to do so. He and his team were likely to score a top pick 1.8% chance on Monday, earning a lucky bounce.
There is no evidence of a conspiracy. Instead, it just solidified what we already knew. The Dallas Mavericks 2025 is falling down as one of the most unlikely roller coaster rides in sports history.
Certainly, Harrison is going to make a simple choice and take the flag on the top pick. But it will be hard to accuse Mavs fans of being on the edge of their seats until the teenage star’s name is called by Brooklyn Commissioner Adam Silver next month.