NEW YORK (AP) — Cooper Flagg and his Duke teammates were together celebrating a victory over North Carolina the night of Feb. 1 when one of them saw the news that had rocked the basketball world.
The Dallas Mavericks were trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers.
“We just all started going crazy,” Flagg said Tuesday. “It was such a shock. Like, it was craziness.”
Now Flagg is set to take Doncic’s place as the franchise superstar in Dallas.
Flagg is expected to be selected by the Mavericks with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft on Wednesday night after a sensational one-season stopover with the Blue Devils.
Everybody but Flagg seems certain he is the Mavs’ man — “I haven’t had that conversation at all,” he insisted — and there’s really no reason for the team to look otherwise. Flagg was the consensus college player of the year, only the fourth freshman to win the Wooden Award after averaging 19.2 points and 7.5 rebounds while leading Duke to the Final Four.
A little more than a month later, the Mavericks turned just a 1.8% chance into a lottery victory, giving them the right to pick first for the second time in franchise history. They brought Flagg in for what he felt was a good workout that lasted more than an hour, though he said they never said he would be their pick.
He’s surely one of the few who might believe there’s reason to wait until Commissioner Adam Silver announces the selection at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
“I mean, my whole family is in Dallas and they’re stoked to be able to go to Mavs games and watch Cooper. He’s part of the family,” said UConn forward Liam McNeeley, Flagg’s teammate at Montverde Academy in Montverde, Florida.
Flagg’s selection would return the NBA draft to the way it was for so long, with a one-and-done college player starting it. A freshman went first for 13 straight years from 2010-22 before the last two No. 1 picks, Victor Wembanyama and Zaccharie Risacher, were both from France.
The No. 2 pick could be Wembanyama’s teammate, as the Spurs are set to draft at No. 2. Philadelphia, Charlotte and Utah round out the top five, with NBA champion Oklahoma City holding two first-round selections and the Brooklyn Nets owning four.
It’s already been a busy NBA offseason, with Kevin Durant and Jrue Holiday being traded. It’s unlikely the Mavericks would consider trading the rights to Flagg, especially not after the uproar from their fans when they dealt away the beloved Doncic.
The No. 3 pick in 2018 from Slovenia led the Mavericks to the 2024 NBA Finals and had become a perennial All-Star and MVP candidate. Flagg said he’s not concerned about the pressure that would come with stepping into Doncic’s shoes.
“I wouldn’t look at anything as pressure,” Flagg said. “I think me going into whatever situation I go into, I’m just going to try to be myself all the time and I’m going push myself to be better and better every single day and make the most out of every day. I’m not worried about living up to certain players’ expectations or things like that.”
Flagg has already shown he isn’t afraid of a challenge. He could have still been in high school last season, but decided to reclassify so he could enter college, and subsequently the NBA, a year earlier.
“I think a quote my mom likes to say a lot, if you’re the best player in the gym than you need to find a new gym,” he said in explaining that decision. “So for me, it was thinking about what I had left to do in high school, how much that would push me to become a better player.
“I felt it was time for me to kind of get to a new environment and push myself to higher levels.”
On Wednesday, he reaches the highest one in basketball.
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