{"id":182148,"date":"2025-10-01T09:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T09:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/182148\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T09:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T09:02:09","slug":"mavs-cooper-flagg-impresses-in-first-official-nba-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/182148\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavs\u2019 Cooper Flagg impresses in first official NBA practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER \u2014 Cooper Flagg,<\/a> with beads of sweat dripping from his dark brown hair, gave himself a pep talk shortly after his first official NBA practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cDay one in the books!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dereck Lively II, once in Flagg\u2019s shoes as the former youngest member of the Dallas Mavericks<\/a>, yelled from the other side of the gymnasium and encouraged the rookie forward on completing his first day of training camp: \u201cYeah, Coop!\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after, Flagg spoke to a group of reporters about his impressions of Tuesday\u2019s practice, held inside West Gym on the campus of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.<\/p>\n

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Competition was one of the focal points of the Mavericks\u2019 first practice of the season and Flagg was at the center of it all.<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"Dallas<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the intensity was great,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cI thought we were competing right from the jump in different shell drills and defensive drills. I thought we had a lot of guys just locked in and competing at a high level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playing against NBA competition isn\u2019t new to Flagg. He faced teammate Anthony Davis and several other future Hall of Famers as a member of the U.S. Select Team as a 17-year-old. He got a sneak peek of the professional game during his two-game stint at the Las Vegas Summer League.<\/p>\n

Flagg says the Mavericks, who are built on their new defensive philosophy, could be one of the best teams in the NBA on that end of the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust utilizing our size,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cUsing that to our advantage. We have a lot of tall, lanky position players. Covering a lot of ground with our length.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flagg received credit from veteran sharpshooter Klay Thompson<\/a> for being involved in every drill, a testament to the work ethic he\u2019s built a reputation for since he was a preteen.<\/p>\n

\u201cCooper did great,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI\u2019m most impressed he did not sit out one drill. I don\u2019t care how many shots he misses, how many mistakes he makes. The fact that he\u2019s in there and he\u2019s competing every single drill, that\u2019s what impresses me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a competitor,\u201d Jason Kidd said. \u201cHe made a lot of the right plays. Handling the ball, playing without the ball at 18 years old. He understands how to play the game at a high level and I thought his energy was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first practice was an opportunity to implement some core principles the Mavericks are emphasizing this season. Kidd said having fun, building championship habits, communication and relationship building were focal points in Tuesday\u2019s session.<\/p>\n

Since his junior season at Nokomis High School, Flagg has learned four variations of terminology in offensive and defensive schemes across different levels of basketball: High school, prep school (Montverde), college and now the NBA. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s different,\u201d Flagg said, \u201cBut it\u2019s all the same thing at the end of the day. You just gotta get accustomed to saying different things. Sometimes I mess up and use old terminology I used at Duke and stuff, but at the end of the day, if you say something, it\u2019s better than saying nothing. Just letting your teammates know where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

That level of communication should be beneficial by the time Flagg steps on an actual NBA court. His unofficial debut in a Mavericks jersey will be in Monday\u2019s preseason opener in Fort Worth against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ready. I\u2019m excited,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to take it one step at a time. Enjoying every process, every step of the way. I don\u2019t want to get ahead of myself, but I\u2019m really excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

X\/Twitter: @MikeACurtis2<\/p>\n

With Bruce Bochy and Chris Koclanes on the outs, D-FW\u2019s coaching carousel keeps turning<\/a>Will the Mavericks play a different style of basketball this year? Klay Thompson thinks so<\/a><\/p>\n

Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 Cooper Flagg, with beads of sweat dripping from his dark brown hair, gave himself a pep…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,5663,7235,27323,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-182148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-cooper-flagg","12":"tag-dallas-mavericks","13":"tag-mavericks","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}