The Mavericks, as expected, took forward Cooper Flagg with the first pick of the 2025 NBA draft Wednesday night.
“I’m feeling amazing. It’s a dream come true, to be honest,” Flagg said after his selection, with his family by his side. “I wouldn’t want to share it with anybody else.”
Dallas won the draft lottery despite only 1.8% odds, putting the Mavs in position to select Flagg, who was widely considered the top prospect in this draft class as soon as he reclassified to graduate high school and enter college a year earlier.
“It’s a generational talent, a once-in-a-lifetime chance,” Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison said. “So just top to bottom, we’re excited.”
The 6-foot-8, 221-pound Flagg, who will not turn 19 until Dec. 21, arrived at Duke with immense expectations and lived up to the hype.
He was a consensus All-American and won multiple national player of the year honors, including the Wooden Award and the Naismith Award, averaging 19.4 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.4 steals while leading the Blue Devils to a 35-4 record and a Final Four appearance.
“I think the biggest thing is he’s a two-way player,” Harrison said. “When you watch him play, he plays hard. … When you have a player that’s that good and people talk about the intangibles — they don’t talk about basketball — then that’s a guy who’s going to add to your culture.”
Flagg’s arrival in Dallas comes less than five months after the Mavs’ shocking blockbuster trade of five-time All-NBA selection Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, a deal that outraged the fan base of a franchise that advanced to the NBA Finals the previous season.
