Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, was introduced at a press conference in front of Dallas media on Friday.
He wants to be a sponge. He thinks being placed into a situation where the team that drafted him No. 1 overall has a chance to win now is a blessing. He’s here to learn, to get better and to win. His favorite basketball movie is “Hoosiers.”
Cooper Flagg, the Dallas Mavericks’ selection with the first overall pick in Wednesday’s NBA Draft, was introduced to the Dallas media on Friday at an introductory press conference, and he made those few things clear, along with another overarching point.
At just 18 years old, he’s already a pro at interacting with a media cohort content to lob softballs his way as the red carpet is rolled out in front of American Airlines Center. He’s going to get in and get out of each answer directly and efficiently without giving away too much.
“I’m coming in just trying to learn and trying to get better every single day,” Flagg said in one of his first answers. “I think if I can do that to the best of my ability, then the expectations and the pressure that other people will put on me — that will kind of work itself out.”
Flagg was seated between his new head coach and the most notorious general manager in today’s NBA, as each had high praise for the rookie.
“We’ll protect you,” Mavs head coach Jason Kidd joked as the three were taking their seats.
Kidd’s first remarks touched on the position-less brand of basketball Flagg may be able to play for this team, and he even went as far as to suggest that Flagg could be part of the equation to fill the team’s need for help in the backcourt in the absence of Kyrie Irving, who is rehabbing a torn ACL and will miss most of the upcoming season.
“I don’t look at position,” Kidd said. “I want to put him at the point guard. I want to make him uncomfortable and see how he reacts — being able to run the show. Being able to play the two, play the three — he’s comfortable doing that, but I want to push [him], and I think he’s going to respond in a positive way. It’s alright to fail. It’s alright to turn the ball over. I’m excited to give him the ball against the Lakers and see what happens. Let’s get it started and see what happens.”
The press conference was humming along for 24 minutes before Nico Harrison provided the off-putting record-scratch moment that has become his signature on the rare occasion these days that he is placed in front of a microphone. Harrison was asked whether he thought drafting Flagg would help heal some of the ill will that large swaths of the fanbase have wafted in his direction since he sent superstar Luka Dončić to Los Angeles for Anthony Davis and a bag of glass shards.
“I think it will help,” Harrison said. “Most importantly, I think, we’re in win-now mode, and we have a really good team, and Cooper adds to that, so I think the fans finally start to see the vision.”
It was a perverse corollary to another eye-roll of a quote he reportedly gave to members of the local media after the first round of the NBA Draft on Wednesday, when he tried to sell us on the idea that the Mavs ending up in the position to draft Flagg was evidence that “fortune favors the bold.”
Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images
Ah, yes, the great vision of the soothsaying orb ponderer Nico Harrison. Cosmic “fortune” has undoubtedly smiled down upon Harrison for jettisoning a generational talent in his early prime by placing another even younger generational talent into his waiting lap. The hubris and main-character syndrome sloughs from him like dead skin from a snake every time he flaps his yap.
Is Harrison’s vision for this team based on cashing in a scratch-off ticket with 50-1 odds? No one has forgotten that the Mavericks only had a 1.8% chance to win the 2025 Draft Lottery. Would he be puffing out his chest if he were introducing the 11th overall pick?
Or is Harrison just content to half-heartedly defend the indefensible move he made with sugar-coated word salad because he knows he’s not going to be around long enough to see through Flagg’s development into the world-beater Mavs fans think he’ll become?
Every time Harrison opens his mouth, a great plurality of fans who’ve been around much longer than he has and who will outlast his commitment to the team by years on both ends seethe. He’s just so relentlessly easy to hate, and he makes it easier every time he tries and fails to sound like an affable leader.
After no small amount of hemming, hawing and screaming into the basketball void, I’ve decided to stick it out as a Mavericks fan. I won’t give up my fandom for the team I’ve loved since I was eight years old, when I pulled my first Jason Kidd rookie from a pack of Fleer basketball cards alongside a Big Red and a couple of comic books from the neighborhood corner store. I saw Michael Jordan play at Reunion Arena. I made it through the darkness of the 1990s with this team. I refuse to let this small-minded front-office gremlin with a minor in shoe sales beat me.
This clown isn’t going to drive me away or kill what small sliver of joy I take in rooting for my NBA team. It’s mine. It’s not his. He’s the tourist, and I can wait him out. Now that Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis and Daniel Gafford all have their three-year deals, I’m convinced that three years is the maximum sentence Mavs fans counting down the days in Nico’s Penitentiary will have to serve.