{"id":52055,"date":"2025-11-16T17:44:36","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T17:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/52055\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T17:44:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T17:44:36","slug":"i-dont-know-if-i-was-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/52055\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I don\u2019t know if I was ready\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cooper Flagg<\/a> spent most of his basketball career playing both forward positions, with occasional reps initiating the offense.<\/p>\n

Mavericks coach Jason Kidd<\/a> saw those flashes of a potential primary ballhandler on film, particularly during Flagg\u2019s lone season at Duke. Two days after Dallas made Flagg the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft,<\/a> Kidd revealed his plan for the 18-year-old rookie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to put him at the point guard,<\/a>\u201d Kidd said during Flagg\u2019s introductory press conference. \u201cI want to make him uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flagg spent the first seven games of his NBA career as the Mavericks\u2019 starting point guard, the lead facilitator in a jumbo lineup<\/a> that featured Klay Thompson, PJ Washington and Anthony Davis and Dereck Lively before they suffered lower leg injuries.<\/p>\n

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It was a compromising position for Flagg, who often faced immense defensive pressure from some of the league\u2019s top defenders, including Oklahoma City\u2019s Lu Dort and Houston\u2019s Amen Thompson. The Mavericks also lacked adequate spacing around Flagg with a lack of perimeter shooting. <\/p>\n

In seven games as the team\u2019s starting point guard, Flagg averaged 13.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.1 turnovers. He had shooting splits of 38.8% from the field, 30.8% from 3 and 100% from the free-throw line. Kidd ended the experiment for Flagg starting at point guard on Nov. 5 against New Orleans. Since then, a traditional point guard has started alongside Flagg, whether it be D\u2019Angelo Russell or Brandon Williams. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s saved a little of the energy for him to be aggressive to attack,\u201d Kidd said at Thursday\u2019s practice. \u201cI think also having him being a point guard, he will always respect whoever the point guard is and how hard it is to play that position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"Los<\/p>\n

The difference is vastly apparent and Flagg\u2019s comfortability has improved with averages of 17.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists with 2.8 turnovers per game in six starts at the small forward position. His overall shooting is better as he converts 48.3% from the field, but his 3-point shooting remains an area of growth with clips of 23% from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

Flagg addressed his recent success and provided a candid response about his struggles at point guard following Friday\u2019s double-overtime loss.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of pressure and a lot of responsibility that comes with being a point guard,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I was ready to handle that right off the bat. I tried my best and that\u2019s not to say I can\u2019t go back to it and I can\u2019t work on it and get better. I think it\u2019s just worked out lately where it\u2019s been better to have somebody else help and relieve pressure. It doesn\u2019t mean I can\u2019t bring it up and initiate offense.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a few reasons why Kidd, who became a Hall of Fame player at that position<\/a>, wanted to throw Flagg into the fire so early. The Mavericks\u2019 best option at point guard is unavailable because Kyrie Irving is still recovering from a torn ACL.<\/a> In a perfect world, Flagg would likely start at small forward in a lineup with Irving, Thompson or Max Christie, Davis and Lively.<\/p>\n

With a fully healthy lineup, there would be immense defensive attention on the Mavericks\u2019 two All-Stars, allowing Flagg to cut, rim-run and set screens, which would allow better offensive spacing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s getting the top defender,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cIf we were healthy, I think it looks a little different with Kai and AD on the floor. He has the third or fourth defender and he\u2019ll be able to take advantage of that, even with the first defender he\u2019s still been able to score and make plays for his team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mavericks also wanted to expedite his long-term development in hopes that he\u2019d be able to handle the pressure such as notable point-forwards like LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo.<\/p>\n

While Flagg has played away from the ball as of late to open games, the Mavericks are still playing through him when it counts toward the end. Look at Friday\u2019s double-overtime thriller when Flagg received the ball and drove through the chest of Nic Batum to score a layup with 20 seconds left. <\/p>\n

It was just another example of Kidd trusting Flagg in clutch situations, similarly to when he drove the ball and finished a double-clutch layup over Antetokounmpo on Monday night.<\/a> Deciding when to keep the ball and be assertive as opposed to making plays for his teammates is part of Flagg\u2019s development. The more reps, the better he\u2019ll be.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"Dallas<\/p>\n

It may not lead to wins for the Mavericks right away. And Flagg may not be a traditional point guard, but he received firsthand training on what it takes to control an offense.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] just a lot of responsibility for being at that position and you\u2019re being tasked with obviously creating for everyone else before yourself as a priority,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I was ready for that, but Coach Kidd was confident in me. I was confident in myself. It wasn\u2019t perfect, but I think I learned a lot through that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooper Flagg spent most of his basketball career playing both forward positions, with occasional reps initiating the offense.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[732,4642,102,104,2582,103,4280,4281,3080,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-52055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-cooper-flagg","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-headlines","12":"tag-dallas-mavericks","13":"tag-dallas-news","14":"tag-jason-kidd","15":"tag-mavericks","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52055","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=52055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}