Mavs Win Big & Here Comes Cooper Flagg

Just when all seemed lost and franchise appeared doomed – sports happens again.

I love sports, and I definitely love the task of sportswriting. The joy of putting things into words on a page is how I start my day, and it never feels wrong. I don’t do it every day—Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually on a golf course—but adjustments must be made when news breaks.

And break it did last night.

The Dallas Mavericks might have saved the worst season any of us can remember by winning the NBA Draft Lottery and securing the 1st pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. This is not just any draft, mind you. This is the Cooper Flagg draft, which has been favourably compared to the best drafts of this generation. You really wanted to pick first those years, and this is one of those. One wise NBA analyst last night compared Flagg’s upside “as the best since” LeBron James when he came out in 2003. That seems incredibly rich and also absurdly dismissive of Victor Wembanyama, but the point is that there are many years when the No. 1 pick doesn’t move the universe around. Apparently, this one might.

And yet, as someone entrusted with the responsibility to put it all into words, I am pretty close to where I was last night: speechless and dumbfounded. I’m not sure that shaking my head in complete disbelief makes for much of a column, because I’m supposed to have something meaningful to say here, so here it goes.

I absolutely cannot believe this. And when I say “this,” I mean any of this. I cannot believe anything that has happened with the Dallas Mavericks in 2025, and last night did not in any way slow that down.

They did something that turned their loyalists against them, and that is often very difficult for a team with the connection the Mavericks have with their populace. They seemed to make a decision that was absurdly dense, ill-conceived, poorly executed, and communicated at all-time lows of competence.

And somehow, they will land on their feet. Luka Dončić is gone and assuredly never coming back. But out of the clouds, here comes 18-year-old Cooper Flagg.