Brian Windhorst<\/a> that he was still tasked with “various menial duties,” such as carrying bags, during the team’s preseason trip to China. After all, the 2025 No. 1 overall pick is still technically a rookie until his sophomore season officially begins later this month.<\/p>\n“I can sometimes sneak by without them remembering that they want me to be a rookie still. But yeah, they definitely try,” Flagg said.<\/p>\n
Despite the good-natured ribbing from his older teammates, Flagg appears ready to ascend even further in his second year in the league. In two preseason games against the Houston Rockets, the 19-year-old recorded 33 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, three steals and two blocks across 45 minutes of action.<\/p>\n
“He’s going to lead this franchise into the future. You can definitely bank on that,” Mavs star point guard Kyrie Irving said. “He deserves a lot of the praise he’s gotten because he’s carried a lot. \u2026 He’s wise beyond his years.”<\/p>\n
Flagg is the new face of a franchise that is still rebuilding after trading star point guard Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2025. The youngster said that he’s prepared to step up as a leader this year as the Mavs try to keep pace in the competitive Western Conference.<\/p>\n
“I’m just finding my voice,” Flagg said. “Being so young and a little bit inexperienced is tough sometimes, but I think up to this point, I’ve earned the respect of my teammates, and I’ve gotten that sense that they really respect me and my opinion.”<\/p>\n
Flagg and the Mavs will open the 2026-27 season on Oct. 21 against the Rockets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Entering his second season in the NBA, reigning Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg is still being treated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-879760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879760","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=879760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}