Mavericks’ expectations after drafting Cooper Flagg 🤔 + Lakers’ offseason needs 👀 | SportsCenter

Mavericks’ expectations after drafting Cooper Flagg 🤔 + Lakers’ offseason needs 👀 | SportsCenter

cooper flag he watched that Wings game from the suite inside the arena
okay yeah mavericks planted their flag introduced Cooper to the Big D Friday afternoon gave him his new number 32 Mavericks jersey at 18 Flag is the second youngest overall first pick in NBA history and this generational talent now has some Maverick fans even saying “Luca who?” Jason Kid says he wants to try the rookie out at point guard i’m just excited to bring my my game to the table and just you know bring the energy both sides of the ball and just you know try and impact winning in a lot of different ways i think you know with the team looking at the roster we can play a really good brand of positionless basketball with a lot of guys that can do a lot of different things so I think that’ll be one of you know the biggest strengths and I think just trying to play to that and just doing whatever I can to help the team win
all right let’s welcome in our senior Anscape writer David Dennis Jr RID D what are your expectations for the Mavs this season especially now that they’ve got Cooper flag well I’m expecting one of the better defenses in the league and off the bat and how could you not be you already have Anthony Davis you already have PJ Washington and you’re and those guys and you’re adding Cooper Flag one and a half block one and a half steals in college a tenacious defender a hardworking defender to that team that alone makes them competitive in the league the offensive end that’s where it gets spicy this talk about Cooper Flag being a point guard and handling the ball that unlocks something that is really interesting it can go one or two ways it can go very badly or it could raise their ceiling to another level i don’t think that they’re necessarily on the OKC level of competitiveness without Kyrie Irving but when Irving is back in the season following this one with another year of Cooper Flag I think that’s when you’re really talking about the potential for a championship contender
okay and listen there’s not a lot of drama especially with the number one overall pick in Cooper Flag but certainly plenty when you talk about the number five pick in Ace Bailey now the Jazz expect Bailey to report to the team today of course leading up to the draft he did not conduct a single visit uh a workout for an NBA team and declined invitations from Utah Charlotte sources tell our ESPN uh Bailey’s reps also told a team in the top five that they did not want the team to select him and that he wouldn’t report if he they did so David on his podcast Thursday Warriors uh forward Draymond Green said that Bailey is quote walking into the NBA with a strike end quote what do you make of this whole situation this is about as disastrous a start to a career that I could think of for an NBA player who has not taken a single dribble on a court yet you have alienated so many people and everybody’s kind of looking at you crazy your own locker room is wondering why you’re not trying to show up there uh other players around the league are wondering why you’re disrespecting the league by making all of these demands and the fans of Utah are already looking at you skeptically because of how you are behaving right now and carrying yourself this is just a disaster possibly waiting to happen for this dude for the way that he is acting in this draft now on the bright side all is not lost for Ace Bailey if he shows up when he finally does show up and plays like a guy who’s willing to contribute like a guy who wants to be rookie of the year like a guy who wants to be there all you know you can salvage this by just being the best version of yourself once you get to Utah but like Draymond said you were already behind the eightball with how you’re carrying yourself this early in your career
here’s why he was the top three talent in the draft bailey was eighth in the Big 10 in scoring had 25 games in double figures including 39 against Indiana which was a Ruters freshman record
nba free agency right around the corner it starts Monday at 6 Eastern we might find out some big decisions this weekend who knows uh LeBron James James Harden and Julius Randall they all have to opt into their player option by tomorrow or they could theoretically sign anywhere uh we have some notable free agents including Miles Turner Cam Thomas Malik Beasley and CP3 senior Anscape writer David Dennis Jr is back with us lakers looking at this pivotal off season we’ve just seen Austin Reeves this week turn down their offer uh clearly obviously they need a center and other things i mean what moves would you like to see them make to complement uh King James and Luca uh Hannah you nailed it they need a big They need somebody for Luca to lob the ball to and really get that offense going what they missed at the trade deadline they tried to get that center couldn’t get them and they were sort of stuck not having that in their offensive repertoire and also somebody to get some rebounds they absolutely need to figure out how to get bigs in that rotation and help out it helps Luca it helps them defensively and it helps their depth speaking of depth here they’re also got to really nail these midlevel exceptions additions to that bench to make them a little bit deeper this team just simply ran out of players and ran out of gas towards the end of the season it’s one thing to go full steam ahead from February to April like they did when they got Luca it’s a whole another thing to do this for an entire season but most importantly all these decisions and all these additions are great but Luca has to be better he has to be one of the top three to five players in the league for these Lakers to have a shot to really be competitive this season
yeah second season under Radic it’ll be really interesting to see what kind of shape Luca comes in like uh meanwhile that is just one of the questions of this off season but I know you have identified the three biggest questions where you starting my friend i’m starting in Milwaukee and I’m starting with Giannis Ana Koopo one of the top three players in the league 3212 and six he has to be in a competitive situation this season i don’t want to hear anything about a gap year milwaukee has to figure out either move him or keep him and build something around him so he can get back to where he was as maybe getting to a championship level other side in the Eastern Conference the New York Knicks when are they going to hire a coach here everybody uh this taking a lot longer than I thought they were going to do are they going to have a coach are they going to have Jason Kid coach the Knicks and the and the Mavs what’s the plan here it’s a time for them to really nail this cuz this decision has to be a great decision cuz this expectation is to be Eastern Conference Finals at least or bus now with Boston Boston is one of the most intriguing teams here because they’ve moved on from Drew Holiday they moved on from Porzingis because of salary needs but you still have Jaylen Brown there you still have Derek White and I know Tatum is not there but you can be moderately competitive in the East especially looking at what that conference has lost i’m interested to see where the Celtics put their assets and where their goals are this season and what it looks like when Jaylen Brown is the number one option on a team for an entire season it it’s so crazy because when they get rid of both Holiday and Porzingis they save a projected 180 million in tax penalties that’s crazy uh there’s only one thing we know for sure double D and it’s this kid cannot coach two teams at once i’m sorry that’s not going to happen david Dennis Jr thanks [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Davis Dennis Jr. joins SportsCenter to discuss expectations for the Dallas Mavericks after drafting Cooper Flagg, the Los Angeles Lakers’ plan heading into free agency and much more.

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