{"id":171380,"date":"2025-09-26T20:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T20:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/171380\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T20:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T20:33:10","slug":"will-cooper-flagg-be-an-all-star-by-year-2-league-insiders-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/171380\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Cooper Flagg be an All-Star by Year 2? League insiders debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/dallas-mavericks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Mavericks<\/a> lucked out this offseason after missing the playoffs in the 2024-25 campaign, landing the No. 1 overall pick and selecting Duke standout Cooper Flagg.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Flagg became just the fourth freshman in NCAA men\u2019s history to win the Naismith College Player of the Year award in 2024-25, helping lead the Blue Devils to a 35-4 record while averaging 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.4 steals per game across 37 appearances.<\/p>\n<p>Now, he\u2019s set to take on a significant role with the Mavericks in his rookie season. However, the 18-year-old joins a veteran-heavy roster featuring Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson, which may limit his early breakout potential.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/dallas-mavericks\/news\/kyrie-irving-creative-tribute-mavericks-klay-thompson\/1f94548ef14daf7a48ad98c2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kyrie Irving unveils creative tribute to Mavericks teammate Klay Thompson<\/a><\/p>\n<p>League insiders weigh in on Cooper Flagg\u2019s ranking by 2026-27<\/p>\n<p>ESPN insiders recently released their rankings for the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/46304114\/nba-rank-2025-2026-flagg-beal-reaves-best-players-100-51\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NBA\u2019s top-100 players<\/a> entering 2025-26, placing Flagg at No. 52. ESPN&#8217;s Tim Bontemps reached out to league insiders for their take on Flagg\u2019s trajectory by his second season, and opinions differed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTop 25,\u201d a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/46381590\/nba-rank-2025-league-insiders-embiid-flagg-top-5-predictions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Western Conference assistant coach said<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019ll be a borderline All-Star and the conversation will be about whether he should make it as a second-year guy or not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Another West assistant coach was less optimistic about Flagg\u2019s role but still projected him to crack the top 50.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just don\u2019t like the role for him on that team,\u201d the coach said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Flagg has the potential to be a two-way superstar and is widely considered one of the best prospects in recent memory. While it\u2019s plausible he could take a significant leap after his rookie season, the Mavericks\u2019 veteran stars \u2014 Irving and Davis, both holding player options in 2027-28 \u2014 could limit immediate opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For now, Flagg will aim to help the Mavericks make a deep playoff run after a drama-filled 2024-25 campaign that included trading former franchise cornerstone Luka Doncic to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>. Flagg is clearly Dallas\u2019 future, but that doesn\u2019t mean he can\u2019t make an All-Star-level impact in Years 1 or 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More NBA News:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks lucked out this offseason after missing the playoffs in the 2024-25 campaign, landing the No.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-171380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}