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Tim MacMahonMar 5, 2026, 04:34 PM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Joined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas MavericksAppears regularly on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM<\/p>\n Multiple Authors<\/p>\n Cooper Flagg<\/a> returned to the Dallas Mavericks<\/a>‘ lineup Thursday night after missing eight games because of a left midfoot sprain and had 18 points and six assists in a 115-114 loss<\/a> to the Orlando Magic<\/a>.<\/p>\n Flagg’s three-point play with 37.3 seconds left gave Dallas a four-point lead, but Orlando scored the last five points. He finished 7-of-22 shooting in 26 minutes and added five rebounds and four blocks, including three in the fourth quarter after he had taken a couple of hard fouls.<\/p>\n “Obviously, the hardest part is not playing. I love to compete, I love to play basketball, so having that taken away from me for a while is tough,” he said. “But it’s a good way for me to learn and get perspective, watch from a different angle. I think I learned a lot in the last couple of weeks, but I was definitely ready to get back out there and compete.”<\/p>\n The Mavs have not ruled out Flagg playing in both ends of the back-to-back set, with the second game in Boston on Friday night. Flagg has said he rooted for the Celtics while growing up in Newport, Maine.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n Flagg injured his foot in a Feb. 10 loss to the Phoenix Suns<\/a>, forcing the No. 1 pick to miss the Rising Stars game during All-Star Weekend.<\/p>\n Flagg, 19, has averaged 20.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists in 49 games. The only other rookies to average at least 20 points, six rebounds and four assists since the ABA-NBA merger are Luka Doncic<\/a>, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird.<\/p>\n “Coop is going to be a superstar in this league,” said Klay Thompson<\/a>, who scored 24 points for the Mavericks on Thursday. “It’s been a pleasure to be his teammate, and I’ll be excited to tell future generations that I got to play with him in his rookie season.”<\/p>\n Flagg, however, has been surpassed by former Duke roommate Kon Knueppel<\/a> as the betting favorite for Rookie of the Year. Knueppel has played a major role in the surging Charlotte Hornets<\/a>‘ midseason turnaround, averaging 19.2 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists while shattering the rookie record for made 3s while shooting 43.6% from long range.<\/p>\n The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim MacMahonMar 5, 2026, 04:34 PM ET CloseJoined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas MavericksAppears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-192932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}