{"id":93552,"date":"2025-08-25T01:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/93552\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T01:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:35:09","slug":"ex-nba-player-sends-warning-to-mavs-jason-kidd-for-decision-on-duke-blue-devils-basketball-star-cooper-flagg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/93552\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-NBA player sends warning to Mavs\u2019 Jason Kidd for decision on Duke Blue Devils basketball star Cooper Flagg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-NBA player sends warning to Mavs\u2019 Jason Kidd for decision on Duke Blue Devils basketball star Cooper Flagg<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

Rashad McCants doesn\u2019t care in the slightest bit for Cooper Flagg, or any young NBA player in the modern game, and he believes the former Duke Blue Devils basketball star is undeserving of a spot in Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd\u2019s lineup.<\/p>\n

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McCants ripped Flagg for not having to work for his position, unlike Kobe Bryant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really big on the freshmen coming out and the young guys because they\u2019re underdeveloped. They\u2019re so underdeveloped and so overhyped. They have to now get to the league and find their way,\u201d McCants said to RG Media\u2019s Lorenzo Reyna<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlagg doesn\u2019t have to work for his position\u2026He\u2019s not proven, though, at all. I mean, Kobe Bryant had to sit two years under Del Harris based on his head coach not believing in playing first or second-year guys. But it helped him a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet, when you come in with an expectation, there\u2019s going to be disappointments. You can exceed those expectations, or you cannot. That puts more pressure on young kids than they expect themselves to just come in and not have any restrictions or road blocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Athletic\u2019s Law Murray is part of the hype train that’s setting those high expectations.<\/p>\n

Murray called on Flagg to pick up ball-handling responsibilities<\/a> until Kyrie Irving returns from his ACL tear<\/a> because of D\u2019Angelo Russell\u2019s decline.<\/p>\n

\u201cJason Kidd, when he got to go to Milwaukee and get the Bucks job, he put the ball in Giannis\u2019 hands and accelerated his [potential]. They\u2019re gonna have to [do the same to Cooper Flagg], because you can\u2019t ask D\u2019Angelo Russell [to be primary ball handler]. D\u2019Angelo was legitimately awful last year,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see if Flagg can remain in the mix for Kidd\u2019s starting five. Training camp could certainly change things if anything drastic happens in Dallas\u2019s frontcourt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-NBA player sends warning to Mavs\u2019 Jason Kidd for decision on Duke Blue Devils basketball star Cooper Flagg…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,69308,12847,5663,7235,69307,1407,13797,13800,13798,590,69306,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-93552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball-star","11":"tag-bucks","12":"tag-cooper-flagg","13":"tag-dallas-mavericks","14":"tag-del-harris","15":"tag-duke-blue-devils","16":"tag-jason-kidd","17":"tag-kobe-bryant","18":"tag-kyrie-irving","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-rashad-mccants","21":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93552","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=93552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}