Cooper Flagg’s official NBA debut is almost here.
Flagg played in his first preseason game on Monday night for the Dallas Mavericks, just months after the franchise selected him with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. While he only played 14 minutes, he helped lead the Mavericks to a 106-89 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
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After a bit of a slow start, Flagg’s first points of the night came in the second quarter when he sank a wild acrobatic contested layup. He then backed it up with a 3-pointer off the dribble not even a minute later.
Though he wasn’t scoring early, Flagg looked very comfortable out there. He found Dwight Powell for a wide-open dunk after running the point midway through the first.
By halftime, Flagg was up to 10 points and six rebounds after he shot 3-of-6 from the field. The Mavericks broke open a 26-point lead at the break. The Thunder, who beat the Charlotte Hornets in their preseason opener on Sunday, went just 13-of-49 from the field as a group in the first 24 minutes.
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While the Thunder rallied in the second half — they outscored Dallas by 10 points in the third, and then opened the fourth quarter on a 21-11 run — it came too late. The Mavericks held on to grab the 17-point win and start the preseason 1-0. Flagg, along with the rest of the Mavericks starters, didn’t return in the second half.
While it doesn’t actually count, Monday night marked a critical step for Flagg before he officially begins his NBA career on Oct. 22. That’s when the Mavericks open their regular season against Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs.
Flagg dominated at Duke, where he won consensus National Player of the Year honors and helped the Blue Devils reach the Final Four. He averaged 19.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game there, and was long considered the favorite to go No. 1 overall in the draft. The Mavericks, just months after the chaos that came with trading away superstar Luka Dončić, remarkably won the NBA Draft lottery for the first time in franchise history. They only had a 1.8% chance to do so.
Flagg appeared in just two Summer League games for the Mavericks before the team shut him down. He dropped 31 points in the team’s second game following a very rough start in which he shot just 5-of-21 from the field.
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The Mavericks went 39-43 last season, and largely fell apart after the Dončić trade. They dealt with several significant injuries, including Kyrie Irving’s torn ACL, and the team’s front office dealt with immense blowback as they limped to the finish just a year removed from their first NBA Finals run in more than a decade. Irving is expected to make a mid-season return to the court.
It’s unclear how much the Mavericks will utilize Flagg throughout the preseason. The team has three games left, starting with a matchup with the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday. They’ll wrap up with a game against Dončić and the Lakers on Oct. 15 in Las Vegas.
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But once the season finally gets going later this month and Flagg settles in, expectations in Dallas are sure to be significantly higher after the turmoil the franchise was entrenched in last season. Fair or not, the 18-year-old will play a critical part in getting the team out of it and back to prominence in an already loaded Western Conference.