By trading Luka, Mavs GM Nico Harrison invites speculation he won’t draft Flagg | Opinion
Under any other circumstance, the next sentence reads, “Having won the NBA’s Draft lottery, the Dallas Mavericks can plan their future around Duke’s Cooper Flagg.”
Unfortunately, the next sentence must read, “With general manager Nico Harrison running the Dallas Mavericks, no one is sure what the team will do with the top pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.”
While members of the Dallas Mavericks front office celebrated their lottery win, and the reality they actually have something positive to sell to angry fans, one team official suggested the following, “He doesn’t fit here.”
That sentence is both insane, and accurate.
In less than a year, the Mavericks reached the NBA Finals, hired a new team president whose task is to build a new arena, traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, missed making the playoffs, and won the draft lottery.
Winning the lottery does not satiate every irate Mavs fan who loves their Luka, but it helps.
And if it were any other general manager in sports, both the NBA and the team could start printing Mavericks’ Flagg jerseys today. Once Harrison traded Doncic to the L.A. Lakers for Anthony Davis, it re-set the way he is viewed, while crushing the spirit of every Mavericks fans and fueling every Ruby Ridge conspiracy theory that has ever existed about the NBA.
The Mavs had a 1.8 percent chance to land the top pick, which were the same odds as the team trading Doncic to the Lakers for Davis, or the Dallas Cowboys winning the Super Bowl in the next 30 years.
Those are the fourth-lowest odds to ever win the lottery. (For the record, look for elaborate conspiracies elsewhere. If more than three people are involved, the grand plan will leak. And, people are stupid. We will ultimately screw it up.)
Until NBA commissioner Adam Silver says, “With the first pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, the Dallas Mavericks select Cooper Flagg, Duke University,” on June 25, everyone must entertain all sorts of preposterous scenarios, including the team trading the pick in exchange for Golden State forward Draymond Green.
Remember, defense does win championships.
Flagg is the consensus best player in the draft, and it’s not particularly close. He would be the first white American player selected No. 1 overall since Milwaukee picked Indiana center Kent Benson in 1977. Nope, Larry Bird didn’t go No. 1; Bird was the sixth pick in 1978.
Video of Flagg watching the lottery was not particularly flattering; he looked like he just won a free trip to Fargo.
As disgusting as it is to suggest, you cannot rule out the value to an NBA team of having some white American dude killing it for your team. That potential value may actually force team governor Patrick Dumont to do what he has not done since he bought the team from Mark Cuban, and flex his owner muscle to say, “This is what we’re doing.”
Because Harrison may actually not want Flagg on this roster; Flagg would fill the same spot as the man Harrison loves more than his family, Anthony Davis.
Davis is the center who is a forward, along the same lines as retired San Antonio Spurs great Tim Duncan. In basketball terms, Davis is big enough to be the “Five” but he’s a “Four.”
Flagg is a four. A four who can play the three.
To make this work, Davis will have to be the five. He can. He’s so good he can defend just about any position on the floor other than point guard. His preference is to be the four.
To make Flagg on the floor with Davis work, the Mavericks will have to adjust. This is a problem coach Jason Kidd wants. And they would be committing their second basketball crime of the year if they don’t.
Harrison’s sin is not trading Doncic, but demanding so little in return from the Lakers. He has been given a gift that no GM deserves, but “deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
He actually may be tempted to take another player, or deal the pick, but he has no choice but to draft the most talented player in this class. If he doesn’t, expect more picketing outside of the American Airlines Center, and “Fire Nico” to win a Grammy.
Until Adam Silver says the Mavericks select Cooper Flagg on June 25, every scenario from the plausible to the historically stupid must be considered.
This story was originally published May 13, 2025 at 10:25 AM.
