{"id":100498,"date":"2025-08-21T23:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T23:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/100498\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T23:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T23:31:08","slug":"brian-scalabrine-played-a-major-role-in-cooper-flaggs-basketball-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/100498\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Scalabrine played a major role in Cooper Flagg’s basketball journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

One day some five years ago, Brian Scalabrine received a phone call from trainer Matt MacKenzie informing him of a 13-year old kid from Maine who was flawlessly handling his\"Flagg\"<\/a> business on the basketball court with near perfection against college basketball players.<\/p>\n

Scalabrine was skeptical, figuring there was no way someone so young could withstand the physicality of the game at that age against older kids. But the kid showed up \u2013 and showed out \u2013 at Scalabrine\u2019s camp, and Scalabrine was completely blown away.<\/p>\n

That kid was none other than Cooper Flagg.<\/p>\n

It was Flagg\u2019s extraordinary basketball IQ, command of the court, ability to get to his spots and penchant for finding the open teammate as a 6-6 phenom that ultimately caught Scalabrine\u2019s undivided \u00a0attention.<\/p>\n

\"Brian\"<\/a>\u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t because he dunked or anything like that,\u201d Scalabrine told Mavs.com. \u201cIt was a cross-court pass teamed up to a guy with perfect timing in the corner in a game where there was Division-1 players there \u2014 18-19-year old players there \u2014 and he passed every test.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every test?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just the eye test,\u201d Scalabrine said. \u201cMentally, he\u2019s on a whole other level. His greatest strength as a basketball player is his ability to learn. This year he\u2019ll play and he might make a mistake, but a month later that mistake will be a thing of the past. Ask anybody.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can ask his high school coach. You can ask Jon Scheyer. And you\u2019ll find out that whatever mistake he made, he learned from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, Scalabrine learned that Flagg wanted to play college basketball at Duke. So, he sent a text to Scheyer, and Flagg wound up playing for Duke last season where he averaged 19.2 points and 7.5 rebounds and was named the consensus National College Player of the Year before becoming the No. 1 overall pick by the Dallas Mavericks in this summer\u2019s NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

Scalabrine also contacted the folks at USA Basketball and told them about Flagg, who, in 2022 was named the USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year.\"Flagg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Scalabrine played in the NBA from 2001-2012, and was a reserve forward on the Boston Celtics\u2019 2008 NBA championship team. So, since he was teammates with Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo, he knows a thing or two about players with exceptional talents.<\/p>\n

Scalabrine even invited Flagg to play on his AAU team in Boston. It was there where Flagg impressively won eight straight games in a 10-second format of games set up by Scalabrine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d have people coming in playing, and we\u2019ll do control pickup,\u201d Scalabrine said. \u201cWe put on a 10-second shot clock where you can only dribble the ball twice, and you can only have the ball in your hands for a second.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do all kinds of things. We\u2019re playing pickup, but we put restrictions, because sometimes these kids, they dribble around too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of the restrictions were too much for Flagg to absorb. It got to the point where Scalabrine figured he had taught Flagg all that he knew. But, deep down, he knew Flagg had many other levels in his repertoire.<\/p>\n

Scalabrine said: \u201cThere was one point about a year later that I worked him out and I just pulled him to the side and I said, \u2018Listen, man, I can\u2019t help you anymore. You need to go and work out with LeBron \"Brian\"<\/a>(James) and Kevin Durant. Go search out the best players in the world. Go train with those guys.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he\u2019s been doing that in the summertime ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Scalabrine\u2019s estimation, Flagg compares favorably to James, who is the NBA\u2019s all-time leading scorer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf LeBron was in an F1 race car, (Flagg) trends like that,\u201d he said. \u201cHe has the ball in his hands a lot, he can check off and make reads.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeBron is a freak of nature. Cooper is not a freak of nature. He\u2019s a good athlete, but I just think he trends to that line where he has the ball in his hands, he can sort of run the show and he\u2019ll learn from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it didn\u2019t take long for Flagg, according to Scalabrine, to pick up little nuances of the game. Tidbits that, for the Mavs, could mean the difference between winning and losing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne time I wanted him to work on throwing the alley-oop, but up in Maine we didn\u2019t have anybody,\u201d Scalabrine said. \u201cSo, we went down in New Hampshire and there was a professional there that came and played with us \u2013 a 6-10 guy. So, within three or four possessions of us playing pick-and-roll, Cooper had already mastered reading my hands.\"Flagg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf my hands were low, he throws it up. If my hands were high, he throws a bounce pass. Those are hard picks to pick up. Some people work their whole life and do not figure that stuff out. It\u2019s the idea of him having the ball in his hands and him making the right basketball play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scalabrine said being drafted by the Mavs \u2013 a team stacks with veterans such as Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, P. J. Washington and Daniel Gafford \u2013 is a godsend for Flagg.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually think it\u2019s better for him to be around good players,\u201d Scalabrine said. \u201cThey can all be good and young, but they happen to be good and older. I think that will be really helpful.<\/p>\n

\"Flagg\"<\/a>\u201cWhen you\u2019re a guard in the NBA and you\u2019re seeing 25 different coverages, I think it\u2019s really nice to have a guy you can throw the ball down to in Anthony Davis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flagg\u2019s transition from college to the NBA won\u2019t be just about his ability to score and pass the basketball, Scalabrine said. There are so many other factors in play.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re getting a big-time offensive player that can move the ball and run a team, and you\u2019re also getting a guy that can guard,\u201d Scalabrine said. \u201cAnd you\u2019ve got to be excited about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you just look at the Mavs and you just think about it from a defensive standpoint, they can the best defensive team in the Western Conference. And that\u2019s not easy to do, because the West is tough. The personnel on their team, if you ask coaches \u2013 don\u2019t ask analysts or fans. If you ask coaches, coaches look at that defensive lineup and they think it\u2019s going to be really tough to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s mainly due to the addition of Flagg, who is 6-9 and only 18 years old \u2014 and still growing. Scalabrine, meanwhile, harkens back to when he first saw Flagg on the basketball court and how Flagg was effectively processing things as a very young teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was incredible,\u201d Scalabrine said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I\u2019m sticking my neck out on the line to tell everybody how good this kid is. It was a no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

X: @DwainPrice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One day some five years ago, Brian Scalabrine received a phone call from trainer Matt MacKenzie informing him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[760,355,99],"class_list":["post-100498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}