Breaking down Cooper Flagg’s debut 👀 It’s all about EXPERIMENTING | NBA Today

Breaking down Cooper Flagg’s debut 👀 It’s all about EXPERIMENTING | NBA Today

Cooper Flag and the Mavs, they face the Lakers and Bronny James. We start midway through the first quarter. Mavs trail three. Grab Flag grabs the ball goes coast to coast, throws it down. That was on That’s how you get your first basket. You think so? Just casual. Next match possession. Flag drives, steps back. Jay, that is pretty step back there. Kyrie’s there. up court pass. Lays it in. All right, let’s go to the second quarter. A minute into the second. Flag drives. He looks to jam the ball, but he’s Yeah. How you feel about that? He got a little too cocky. Next mass possession. Ronnie James on him. Flag tries to back down. James stands his ground. Knocks the ball out of his hands. People love to see this. I thought that was a good D by Brown Bry on that one. I I tell you what, his strength from last year, he’s gotten a lot stronger. That was the next play. Under a minute left in the half. Mass trail six. Last drives, makes a layup. I think that’s the most impressive thing about me. He recognizes in the open court when he has a mismatch and when he can get downhill. All right, four minutes left in the first. Tristan Dilva spins, hits the fadeaway. Late in the second, Jason Richardson. D Silva. [Music] There’s the vision. So you got the block on one end and the assist on the other. Winning basketball. Yes. That’s how you do it. All right. Here’s Bronnie. Misses and we know what happened to Here’s Cooper flag after the game. You know, the coaches, they had a lot of confidence in me. Uh they’ve been telling me they want me to, you know, experiment, try some new things. Um I was trying to be aggressive. You know, that’s new for me, too. Um, you know, I would say that might be one of the worst games of my life. Um, just making sure I’m holding my ground. I got like a half a foot on me. So, um, just kind of Cooper, he’s great. I mean, I watched him all in college. He’s an amazing player. So, most respect for [Music] you want the ball in his hands and so he’s a great decision maker. He did that at Duke and also in high school. So, you get to see it tonight. He’s going to have some mistakes. We all did. We all threw it in the stands once in a while, but I think just his poise as a 18-year-old is is incredible. All right, so Flag shot just five for 21 from the floor, but tough shooting nights from a summer league opener are pretty common for top draft picks. Victor Womenyama went two for 13 in his debut before starring in his second game while Kate Cunningham made only five of 17 shots in his opener. I didn’t give us a proper introduction. Christine Williamson, Bobby Mars, Sham Shirania, and Udonis Hasslam here. Start with the good UD. What did you see from Cooper that you like last night? Well, the defense, his activity defensively oftent times and everybody on this panel could tell you it’s hard to get young guys to play weak side defense to take your 29, which is people at home be in the paint when the ball’s on the other side. You see his first steal was him from being on the help side, getting out on the break. You see the block. That’s once again him being on the help side, being the low man, getting that block, and then getting out in transition and not just going downhill, being overly aggressive, making the right play at the right time. I know he felt like that was the worst game of his career. Cooper, you’re probably going to have worse games in the NBA, but that is not a bad game to start with. That is something that we see and guys that know basketball say, “Okay, that’s something to work with. You got something there, Dallas.” I I thought him being uncomfortable was probably the most important thing I saw. And and before the game, I walked out with Jason Kid and I said, “Were we going to see him at point guard?” And he goes, “First possession.” And you saw that with Cooper. And basically what the Lakers did, they threw a double at him. I’ve never seen that before in a summer league game. They threw a double at him. And we saw him primarily at point guard. And u you know that this is about experimenting. Summer league is all about experiment. We can throw five for 21 out the window. It’s about putting a player in an uncomfortable position, kind of getting him out of his comfort level. and we saw that and and what I’ll remember from this game is the block and then the transition as far as the assist to to win this game. Do you remember your first game UD ever playing in the NBA? Because I would imagine there’s not only the pressure of playing for the first time, but when you think about how much pressure Coupe has said he doesn’t have that much pressure. He’s going to the Mavs, but wouldn’t that be a factor in how he played last night? Yeah, I think so. Any young guy comes in and any young guy when you’re stepping into some league, except for undrafted guys like myself, undrafted guys like myself, you got to put up numbers. You got to turn heads. cannot have a bad offensive game. But a guy like Coopa Flag, you’re not judging him off his numbers at the end of the game. You’re really judging him like Bobby said, how does he deal in uncomfortable situations? Can he get comfortable being uncomfortable and high stress situations? Is he going to make the right play? Is he going to get guys involved? Is he going to get guys open? And offensively, when he came down and he had an open side and he had a mismatch, he recognized that space and he took advantage of that every single time. That is encouraging for a 18-year-old young man. Yeah, he’s so young. Uh you talked to Mark Cuban after his debut. What did he Yeah, I spoke to Mark Cuban last night and today just for his overall thoughts being there with Patrick Dumont, the owner, Kyrie Irving, that whole team. He said to me that Cooper Flag is a far better passer than they anticipated when he came in for summer league workouts. They he said his size, vision, his IQ, they’re already elite. They feel like every single game that goes by, Mark Cuban said he’s going to learn more and more about the game. He was getting to his spots, he was getting his shots off, he’s making an impact on both ends of the floor. Those are all positive signs for a template for him moving forward. Uh UD, when you think about Coup’s game, a lot of people said he didn’t have weaknesses, but what is something that you think he should work on if anything? Gotta get a little stronger. We we watched him try to back down Bronny and he wasn’t really moving. And Bronnie is what, a year removed from college, but also he came out early, too. So, these are two young men, but that’s nothing to really worry about because most young guys when they come in this league, they have to adjust to the physicality. They have to adjust to the strength. They’re not playing against kids anymore. You’re playing against grown men. You have to guard your yard. So, understanding just the physicality of the game, getting stronger, that’s something that will come with time. I think Jason Kid and Dallas Mavericks understand that. Sunstar Deon Booker has agreed to a 2-year projected $145 million maximum contract extension with the franchise through the 2029 30 season. The highest annual extension salary in NBA history. Here is Booker signing his contract next to the man who will sign those checks, Matt Ishbia. So, here’s the thing. Booker’s 72.7 million projected average annual value passes SGAA supermax deal for the highest in NBA history. And as you can see here, no deal had even reached $63 million per year before this week. Shams, what exactly does this mean for Booker and the Suns? Christine, for starters, Devin Booker is Mr. Phoenix. I’m told the entire Suns roster flew out Wednesday to be there for him to celebrate and honor his extension. I’m told they surprised him with a team dinner at Delila at the win. So everything about Devin Booker has been commitment back to the franchise. He said publicly, privately behind the scenes he wants to retire in Phoenix. He wants to bring a championship to Phoenix. And Booker Suns owner Matt is met for an hour before this agreement to finalize not only the contract but discuss how they would be moving forward through the next couple years. This is a Suns team that has had a lot of transition. They have had a complete roster overhaul. So, what does the partnership, the vision of the future looks like? They are on the same page. They’re aligned now. And this cementss him as the face of that franchise moving forward. 5 years, $316 million on his son’s contract moving forward. Bobby, what does this mean for the future of the Well, I mean, I looked at that graphic and I remember when the salary cap used to be $73 million and now we have it for one player here. I I think for Phoenix, the one constant is always going to be Devin Booker, who was drafted in 2015. as much as as the ups and downs this organization has had and certainly going to the NBA finals, he’s been that one constant presence. I think for the organization moving forward, they had a 2-year window with Kevin Durant and Bradley Beiel and Devin Booker. And the most important thing to do is is to pivot from that. And that’s what they’re doing right now. And the most the most important thing to learn is that what gets teams in trouble is when you’re stubborn. When you’re stubborn, hang on to players that maybe have not, you know, gotten you to further into playoffs than you think. And I think that’s where we’re thinking where where Phoenix is going. A good draft with Kan Milew watch. They added Jaylen Green and certainly Dylan Brooks here, but it’s a it’s a change in direction, but as we said, the one constant is Devin Booker. Yeah, I agree with you a thousand%. Deon Booker is the constant. He’s the guy that we knew was going to be there. He’s the if there’s anything that they have gone through, he’s the one rose that has grown from this concrete. Like nothing else has been good about that. But I’ll say this, like when you look at the Phoenix Suns, it’s about what’s going to be around Devin Booker. like you lost James Jones. You continue to lose coaches. You continue to make different moves. So, praise to Devin Booker. He deserves it. We are happy. But that does nothing for me. Yeah. I need to see what you’re going to put around him. I need to see what what’s next with the coaching staff. And I need to see how that works and how it puts together. You got Jaylen Green. You got some young pieces. You got um defensive wings now. You went and got some bigs. Now, you got a couple bigs. So, you got a lot of different pieces. I just want to see how it all works together. But congratulations to Booker. He definitely deserves it. A really good point there from UD because the next question is what’s gonna happen with Bradley Beal Shams. What is the latest with him? The Suns are working through a resolution on his future. These are conversations that that have been going on. You think about buyouts via stretch uh and wave. But Bradley Beal also has a lot of say in this as well. They’re going to stretch his contract. He would have to give up about $13.9 million. And then the other side of that is finding the next home. So these are conversations that are very fluid. They’re ongoing. A lot of it is on Brad Beal, his representation, Mark Barlstein at Priority Sports and the Suns working together to figure out just exactly when and if there is a resolution if he is departing where for Bradleyville to where he’s going to give up that amount of money in a buyout. In my opinion, I kind of look at this as similar to the Kamingo situation. It’s time for Brad to go somewhere else where he can be free mentally as a basketball player and be his best version. I told you this before, we’re sensitive. We want to be wanted. We want to feel like you want us on your team. Once that has lost from a basketball player, it’s better off just for us to go somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. We know how the Suns season ended last season. It wasn’t great.

NBA Today’s Christine Williamson, Bobby Marks, Shams Charania and Udonis Haslem recap Cooper Flagg’s Summer League debut for the Dallas Mavericks against Bronny James and the Los Angeles Lakers. The panel also discusses Devin Booker’s max extension with the Phoenix Suns as well as Bradley Beal’s future with the team.

0:00 Lakers vs. Mavericks
2:57 Thoughts on Flagg’s performance
6:06 Booker’s extension
9:23 Beal’s future in Phoenix

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