NBA Summer League Reaction: Why media is WRONG about Cooper Flagg & Mavericks | THE HERD

NBA Summer League Reaction: Why media is WRONG about Cooper Flagg & Mavericks | THE HERD

But we’re going to start with the big debut last night. Cooper flag, the 18-year-old phenom from Duke in his first NBA summer league game. Now, I know everybody wants to draw dramatic sweeping conclusions from a summer league game in Vegas. I’m just going to warn you, don’t do that. Okay. The 18-year-old Cooper flag had an uneven game. Listen, this is what happens. What? Remember when Binyama last year came out in his first summer league game and was kind of awful and everybody’s oh he’s not going to he’s going to be fine. That was two years ago. But Cooper Flag last night shoots five of 21 0 for five on threes and all I hear is well I don’t know his shot doesn’t look good. Jay I I didn’t where is he elite? I’m like guys we saw him for a full season at Duke. He’s elite everywhere. I mean, I I just thought the overreaction to Cooper Flag shooting last night was goofy. Let me tell you what he does well. The guy’s a winning basketball player. Should I mention with 70 seconds left, he makes the game-saving block on a layup attempt by a Laker guard. Just swats it out of thin air. And then guess what happens? He comes down on the fast break and Cooper Flag makes the game-winning assist to a young Nemhard. Boy, did that kid look good. and the Mavs pull out the win over the Lakers. And somewhere along the line in the NBA mostly, we we got to this, hey, hey, if you’re a jack of all trades, but master of none, I don’t know. It’s just what are you elite at? Well, let me ask you guys. When Nicole Joic came into the NBA at 20, what was he elite at? Anyone? Anyone? What about Giannis? He gets into the league at 19. This spindly young fellow from Greece. Hey, what is Giannis elite at, Jay? Uh, hey, sorry. Length. Okay, that’s not an elite trait. That’s not a skill that carries over. Like, Giannis came into the league, he wasn’t elite in anything. Cooper Flag comes in more advanced than those guys as an 18-year-old. Remember, a month ago, he should have graduated high school. That’s when you usually graduate high school, right? 18 and a half, 18ish. He he completed a season at Duke, was utterly dominant, and now is in the NBA summer league at 18 and a half. Doesn’t turn 19 until later this year. That’s crazy. And all these people who are like, Jason, he shot five of 21. Look at the form on his shot. Guys, take a timeout. Take a deep breath. He played 32 minutes last night. Okay, this guy’s been working for the last decade to get to this moment as a young guy. Of course, he had butterflies. I will point out he shot 84% from the line at Duke last season. Okay, three-point shooting, you know, how you shoot free throws is a better descriptor of how your three-point shooting could go. Cooper’s going to be fine from three. Shot 38% at Duke. I don’t expect him to shoot 38% in the NBA as a rookie, but he’s going to be fine. I just think the overreaction and this whole like he’s Andre Karolinko. Can we stop with that nonsense? I It’s just goofy. And people forget when it comes to the draft, it’s not about what you are, it’s about what you can be. I’ve tried to hammer this home in the NFL. I try to hammer this home in the NBA. Nobody cares about what VJ Edgecomb is as a rookie in Philly. He’s drafted super high because what’s he going to be in three, four, five years? We’ve got him on the rookie deal. What can he be? Well, I’m here to tell you Cooper Flag to me, I look at him and I see a young Kevin Garnett. And I know everybody who’s gonna hear that and see it online is going to say, “Well, wait a minute. Kevin Garnett won an MVP. Kevin Garnett was leading the league in rebounds for four straight years.” Yeah, when he’s like 27. Cooper Flag at 18 is better than Kevin Garnett was at 18, period. I mean, you can look up the stats. Kevin Garnett’s rookie year, he was fine. Cooper flag will be better because he’s more of an advanced player at this juncture. Now the question becomes will he continue to improve the way Giannis uh the way Jokic the way KG those guys improved dramatically. Guys like LeBron and Luca came in not as finished products but they were different. Okay Luca was like 217 and six as a rookie. LeBron I think was like averaging 19 points, five boards, five assists. Those are other worldly numbers. extraordinary players, historic greats. I think Cooper Flag can get there. He’s obviously not there yet, but can we please stop overreacting to him shooting five of 21 in what he called one of the worst games of his life. Here’s Cooper Flag on his summer league debut. I just couldn’t really get into a rhythm. Um, you know, it’s a different environment. You know, I think it’s obviously very different college. It’s probably very different from what, you know, the real NBA is going to be like. I’m not necessarily worried, but um obviously just not happy with how it went, but you know, at the end of the day, we did get the win. Yeah. I mean, listen, the win matters, I’m sure, to those who care about summer league. And um Cooper Flag obviously wants to start his career with a win. I’ll just say I see a guy who does everything well at 18. And that frankly terrifies me. Winning and what he is, he’s a winning player. I mean, don’t let’s not bring up the loss to Houston that cost me a lot of money in the NCA tournament. That was not on Cooper flag. He’s got to get the ball. And oh by the way, just one last small thing for the basketball hoop heads out there. Go look at the reel of Cooper flag last night. Every time he got in the lane, two, three defenders waiting for him. Not going to happen in the NBA, folks. He’ll be surrounded by real NBA players like Klay Thompson, who you can’t leave open. Like PJ Washington, who becomes all of a sudden a good shooter when he’s around Luca and Kyrie. He’s going to have NBA players around him. You’re not going to be able to clog the lane. and Cooper flags will be dunking on a lot of people and have a really good rookie year. All right, I want to pivot now to a story that was just breaking right before we came on air about a fractured relationship between the Lakers and LeBron James. Now, if you’ve been paying attention for a couple weeks, it’s been smelling a little funky in LA. Things have not been trending well. And according to a big deep dive from Brian Winhorst and Ramona Shelburn, LeBron James is pretty ticked off. And listen, you could see from his actions that he’s not thrilled with what’s going on. And according to the story, and Winhorst is a great reporter and uh I know him well, and Ramona Shelbert, they they’re good. They’re buttoned up. This is top level stuff. This isn’t transactional reporting uh that are handed to you from agents. This is stuff you got to fish for. And it sounds like the gist of it is, hey Lakers, let’s remember a few things here. LeBron picked the Lakers. LeBron dragged the Lakers out of the wilderness. Everybody wants to remember Kobe’s final game was awesome. It was uh the final five years before LeBron got there, the Lakers were a dumpster fire. They were It was the worst stretch in franchise history. LeBron saved them. He pulled them out of that disaster, okay? And within a couple years brought them a title, got them Anthony Davis, okay? LeBron saved the Lakers franchise. That’s not hyperbole. That’s fact. He saved him. And now, as he ages into his 40s, LeBron is feeling like the love is not quite there anymore, and the focus is on the new shiny toy, Luca Donuch. And this article uh really articulates how there was a big whine and dine between the powers that be of the Lakers and Luca and and LeBron didn’t get the invite. Maybe his got lost in the mail. Um and it was basically how can we move forward? Here’s our game plan. Here’s what we want to do. And it was like LeBron was not an integral part of that. And you could see how he would feel salty. He was a second team allNBA guys. He’s the greatest player in the history of basketball and he was awesome last year at this age. Like, can we respect him a little bit? Now, from the Lakers camp, they will certainly push back. Well, well, wait a minute, LeBron. What are you talking about? Last year, you wanted us to draft your boy Bronnie. We drafted him. Last year, you wanted JJ Reic as head coach. We got him. So, we’re still catering to you, my guy. You’re still in our game plan. But the problem is things have changed since last summer. The Luca Donuch trade changed everything. Remember before the Lakers were like, “Oh, we can build around Anthony Davis going forward. As LeBron gets into his 40s, AD will be our centerpiece.” Well, Lakers had an opportunity to get younger and better. And they did that. And it’s pretty clear there’s some mending offenses to be done with LeBron and Yoan Buha who covers the Lakers closely. He was on here yesterday talking about this relationship. LeBron wants him to spend all the picks. Here’s Yvon talking about the issues. This is the first time you could say in LeBron’s career he hasn’t been the sole focus or or the primary focus of his franchise that he’s been on. Like even with AD, it was all like it was always LeBron trying to pass the baton to AD. Luca just came in and and got the baton, right? Like I get it. He’s a guy who’s about to enter his prime. He’s already led a team to the finals, but LeBron’s just I think the big thing is like he sees the finish line whether it’s another year, two years, and he wants to win that fifth ring, and it doesn’t feel like the Lakers are going allin on this year’s roster. So now that’s a decent point. LeBron’s looking around being like, are we better? Can we compete with Denver and Houston? I think DeAndre Aton, I know the take yesterday did not go over well in the ende. Uh, let’s just be real, guys. DeAndre Aiden at $8 million is a heist next year for the Lakers. Absolute steal. You take him over Rudy Gobear for 36 million in a heartbeat. All right, so the Lakers did get better. Obviously, Aton’s got a bit of an ugly history being a malcontent, but let’s see if he shapes up with Luca and LeBron on the roster. And I got to ask this Bradley Beal thing. A lot of people are projecting the Clippers to get him. If the Lakers get Beal, I don’t want to hear this. It’s like Russell Westbrook. It’s absolutely not. They’re not even close to the same player. What Westbrook’s kind of an unhinged I’m going to get mine. I can do it myself guy. That’s not Bradley Beal. Bradley Beal’s never won anything. Never been anywhere. He’ll fall in line. I I think obviously LeBron is upset with how things went. Remember at the deadline they could have got Mark Williams, which would have been good. Lakers nixed that trade. I think in hindsight we’ll look back at that moment and be like, “That was smart.” Why? because the Lakers are not going to be hamstrung for the next three, four, five years. They’re able to build quickly around Luca. And I guess I can wrap up with this. The whole two timelines thing is difficult. You want to know, go ask the Golden State Warriors. Remember, after Durant left, they had injuries to Clay and Curry. They end up with a top five pick, and that’s where they got James Weisman, and they also got Jonathan Kuminga. And those were two guys they thought they could build around going forward. But they had this old old regime, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, LeBron. How do you merge those two timelines and get them on the same page? Now, the Warriors, while they technically couldn’t figure it out, they did figure it out because they got another title, but they didn’t secure the long term with Wiseman and Kaminga. Wiseman got shipped out of town. He really hasn’t panned out anywhere. and Kaminga is probably gonna land elsewhere here in the next 10 days. So that timeline’s done. It’s difficult to thread that needle between young guys and old. Luca, what 26, LeBron 40? That’s going to be immensely difficult. There are going to be some hiccups. I think they just Lakers need just to man up, get to the table, tell LeBron, hey, we can compete. DeAndre, hey, by the way, LeBron, did you watch how OKC struggled against Joic? Did you see how OKC struggled against Zubac? They can’t handle bigs. Then they got to go bigs and their strength of guards and wings goes out the window. We’ve got Aon. Obviously, he’s not Joic, but he can hang inside. He’ll give OKC problems. Like, there is a world where the Lakers compete, but I think LeBron just needs to be shown the love. And frankly, sometimes we all need a little bit of love, right? We have a phenomenal show today. And coming up next, OKC, you know, I just mentioned them. They just signed another guy to a massive contract, but their title window, it’s smaller than you think because of some dumb NBA rules. That’s next on the herd.

Jason McIntyre is filling in for Colin Cowherd and reacts to Cooper Flagg’s NBA Summer League debut with the Dallas Mavericks. He explains what the media is getting wrong about Cooper Flagg, his comparisons, and why NBA fans should not overreact to the Duke star’s NBA debut. Jason also discusses the Los Angeles Lakers and their issues with LeBron James.

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