Dallas head coach Jason Kidd hailed an ‘incredible day for the Mavericks’ as the team landed the first overall pick in the NBA Draft.
The Cooper Flagg sweepstakes came to a dramatic end on Monday night as the Mavericks defied a slim 1.8% chance of landing the No 1 pick.
After the fanbase was left heartbroken by the mind-boggling trade which sent franchise star Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in February, new life has been breathed into the Mavericks.
Next month’s draft in Brooklyn will almost certainly see Dallas select former Duke Blue Devil Flagg, recently named the consensus national player of the year and first-team All-American.
Kidd told DLLS Network: “Incredible day for the Mavericks. We are all so excited.”
WATCH: The best of Cooper Flagg’s freshman year at Duke
Flagg, a 6-foot-9 forward, has been regarded as the top recruit in the 2025 class since winning multiple national high school player of the year honors as a senior.
The 18-year-old won both ACC Player of the Year and ACC Rookie of the Year awards – joining Zion Williamson, Marvin Bagley III and Jahil Okafor as the only players in conference history to achieve the feat in the same season.
He averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists a game in college as Duke fell to a narrow defeat against Houston in the NCAA national championship game last month.
Even before playing a single college game, Flagg was named to the USA Select Team to practice with the United States men’s national team before they jetted off to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The teenager told ESPN post-lottery: “This entire experience for me has been amazing. Just gonna look forward to, like you said, being a two-way player.
“That is something that I have done since I was a little kid, so I’m just gonna try to keep doing that to the best of my ability.”
