DALLAS — Every NBA season includes a draft, and rare is the No.1 pick who doesn’t arrive with mountains of hype and piles of expectations, realistic or not.
But every few years, the hype piles higher and the expectations rise right along with it.
By that measure alone, Dallas Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg belongs in the same conversation as Victor Wembanyama, Zion Williamson, and LeBron James — subjectively the most anticipated No. 1 picks of the past 25 or so years.
Flagg checked every box as he ascended to his unquestioned status as the first overall pick this past June, a selection that fell into the Mavericks’ lap as they won the draft lottery despite having the 11th-best odds going in.
The Maine native was dominant in age-group basketball, both domestically and internationally, representing the United States. He was dominant in his lone college season at Duke, despite being just 17 years old, and he capped that off by leading the Blue Devils to the NCAA Final Four, posting one jaw-dropping performance after another. All this after shocking NBA scouts with how well he performed against a star-laden Team USA roster during a summer 2024 scrimmage in Las Vegas just months after finishing high school.
For most of the 12 months leading up to the draft, it was Cooper Flagg No. 1 and everyone else jostling to go No. 2, just as it was for James and Wembanyama — the third-year star the Toronto Raptors will see Monday night in San Antonio (Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet+, 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT) on the second half of their Texas back-to-back.
Watch Raptors on Sportsnet
The Toronto Raptors hit the road for a Texas back-to-back on Sunday and Monday, starting with a matchup against 2025 No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks. Watch the game on Sportsnet ONE or Sportsnet+ at 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.
Playing against former No. 1 picks is a rare experience. Across the entire NBA, there are only 14 former No. 1 picks still active. In their entire 31-year history, the Toronto Raptors have had a No. 1 pick on their roster three times — Andrea Bargnani, who they drafted in 2006 and traded in 2013 after seven unremarkable seasons. The big Italian was out of the NBA shortly after. Toronto native Anthony Bennett, who was taken No.1 overall in 2012 — a pick as shocking as Flagg’s was inevitable. He appeared in just 151 games over four seasons — 19 with the Raptors after signing mid-season in 2015-16 — and was out of the league by the time he was 24 years old. And Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, who arrived north of the border for a cup of coffee — playing 61 games in 2001-02 before retiring — after 17 remarkable years with the Houston Rockets.
The Raptors don’t have a former No. 1 overall pick on the roster now, but they do have players who were taken second, third and fourth in Brandon Ingram, RJ Barrett and Scottie Barnes. The expectations they carried weren’t quite the same as Flagg has on him now, but they each had some insight into what it’s like to come into the league with an organization and a city putting their hopes and dreams on their teenage shoulders.
“What he’s going through is really insane right now,” said Barrett, who was taken third overall out of Duke in 2019 as a 19-year-old by a New York Knicks organization desperate for success after six years without a playoff appearance at the time. “I remember just being drafted, going in, all the expectations, all of the everything. For (Flagg), he just has to play his game. If he plays his game, focuses on that, he’ll be good. He already has all the tools … he just has to go in there and learn as much as he can. It’s tough being a rookie, but I think he’s in a good place to excel.”
That Flagg was taken by the Mavericks makes his situation unique, even among former No. 1 picks who typically join terrible teams that stay terrible for a couple of seasons more. The San Antonio Spurs won 22 games the season before they drafted Wembanyama in 2023 and 22 games in his rookie year. The New Orleans Pelicans were a 33-win team in 2018-19 when they selected Williamson and didn’t post a winning record until his fourth season. Even the Cleveland Cavaliers, having lost 65 games the year before they drafted James in 2003, missed the playoffs in the first two years of his illustrious career.
But because Dallas won the lottery by jumping 11 places and was only in the lottery at all because they traded Luka Doncic mid-season for Anthony Davis, who promptly got hurt, followed by Kyrie Irving’s season-ending knee injury. When at full strength, Dallas expects to be a playoff team at worst in the highly competitive Western Conference.
That’s just one of the elements of Flagg’s rookie experience that Ingram finds hard to relate to, even though he came out of Duke as an 18-year-old freshman drafted to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2016.
“I personally commend Cooper Flagg, because I think his transition will be a little different than me or RJ’s or Scottie’s was because as the years go, players get better and better and better,” says Ingram. “He’s coming into a situation where I think he’ll be more ready than I was … I went to L.A. and everything was like a whirlwind.”
Barnes, meanwhile, sees parallels to the situation Flagg is in with the Mavericks. The Raptors struggled during the “Tampa Tank” season in 2020-21 (the year they relocated to Tampa during the COVID-19 pandemic), which is how they were in position to draft Barnes out of the University of Florida with the fourth pick in 2021. But in his rookie year, the Raptors were just two seasons removed from winning the NBA title and one from posting the NBA’s second-best regular season record in 2019-20.
The Raptors weren’t quite that team when Barnes joined them following the departures of Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka and Kyle Lowry, but in Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby, they still had a quality core that expected to compete, much as the Mavericks expect to this season.
Another parallel is that while Flagg is being pressed into duty as a super-sized, six-foot-nine point guard while Irving is out, Barnes had to find his footing in the NBA as an undersized centre at times, given the Raptors’ lack of bigs that season.
“I think when I came here, even though I was the No. 4 pick, we had a very talented roster, like, he’s got Dallas,” said Barnes. “We had guys who had won a championship together, who already had an identity, so I was just trying to come in there, play hard as I can, do all those little things, that kind of stand out. Grab an offensive rebound. Whenever someone got beat, I’m going to help. And then, plus, I was playing the five, so I was kind of playing out of position. I’m guarding Embiid, Jokic, those seven-footers, big body guys every single night. So, you know, I was just trying to make an impact on the game any way possible.”
Barnes certainly made his mark, joining Damon Stoudamire and Vince Carter as the only Raptors to earn Rookie of the Year honours. Barnes averaged 15.3 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 1.1 steals on 49.2 per cent shooting while helping Toronto to a 48-34 record and the playoffs.
Barrett and Ingram had more mixed results coming into the league, however, despite their high-pick pedigree. With the Knicks, Barrett averaged 14.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.6 assists on 40.2 per cent shooting while starting 55 out of a possible 66 games in the pandemic-shortened season. The Knicks went 21-45 and fired their head coach and the team president mid-season. Barrett earned second-team all-rookie honours while getting a first-hand look at the business of the NBA.
Unless things go south badly in Dallas, that won’t likely be Flagg’s experience
“He’s going into a better situation than what I was going into,” said Barrett. “(Flagg) has a chance to play winning basketball right away.”
In his rookie year, Ingram disappointed — at least compared to what his draft position would have suggested. Having just turned 19, Ingram averaged 9.4 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.1 assists on 40.2 per cent shooting and didn’t gain all-rookie recognition. He didn’t become a starter until February of his rookie year as the Lakers finished 26-56. Ingram broke out in his second season, having taken a year to make the adjustment to the demands of the NBA.
“For me it was like, playing every other day, practice every single day, new to the city, all the excitement around LA,” says Ingram, who grew up in Kinston, North Carolina, and didn’t leave home until he was finished high school, and even then, just went up the road to Duke. “Like, I wasn’t so much worried about basketball when I first got there. I was just trying to figure things out. Some days, I didn’t know what city I was in when we traveled.”
Based on the smallest of sample sizes — Flagg’s meeting with the Raptors on will be just the third of his NBA career — the heralded rookie will have some early growing pains as he works to establish himself. He is averaging 14.0 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists, but the Mavericks are 0-2 and Flagg is shooting just 37 per cent while averaging 4.0 turnovers per game.
While Barnes and Ingram will be on the court with Flagg for the first time on Sunday (Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet+, 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT), Barrett had a chance to work out with the former Duke star at Montverde Academy a couple of summers ago when Flagg had just finished high school.
Based on that experience, Barrett needs no convincing that Flagg is worth the hype, finding himself impressed with the rookie’s work ethic and his combination of size and skill. He also noted that with Flagg’s high release, his shot will be hard to get to, likening it to Dirk Nowitzki’s or Kevin Durant’s. “He’s six-nine and shoots the ball up there (Barrett mimics shooting the ball well over his head), that’s tough to get to,” explained Barrett. “He’s good.”
But that high school kid is now in the NBA with all eyes on him. Barrett can relate.
“It goes by fast,” said Barrett. “Senior year to the NBA, it goes like that.”