Dallas Mavericks Summer League Winners & Losers Ft. Cooper Flagg, Ryan Nembhard, Melvin Ajinca

Dallas Mavericks Summer League Winners & Losers Ft. Cooper Flagg, Ryan Nembhard, Melvin Ajinca

Welcome into Mavericks Today by Chat Sports. Happy Friday to you guys. On today’s show, we are going to break down the winners and losers for the Mavericks from the 2025 NBA Summer League. I’ve got five winners and I’ve got three losers to talk to you guys about. But to kick off today’s show, I was kind of talking to some fellow Mavs fans about this and there were certainly some deferring opinions. Who is the best player on the Dallas Mavericks? Do you think it’s Kyrie Irving? Is it Anthony Davis? Would you go with Cooper Flag, even though he has not played an NBA game yet? Let me know down in the comments who you guys think is the best player on this Mavericks roster. In my opinion, it’s Kyrie Irving. But if you say Anthony Davis, I certainly would not be mad about it whatsoever. Let’s hop right into the summer league winners and losers. I’m going to go with Cooper Flag. And I know what you’re thinking. He had such a bad game against the Lakers in his summer league debut. Yes, he did not shoot it well, but he did a lot of other things on the court that I really liked. Loved how he defended. He made the play that won the game, the weak side block that won the game against the Lakers. And that was the only game that the Mavericks have won here in the summer league to date. He finished the summer league in two games with 20 and a half points, five rebounds, two and a half assists, and two and a half steals and blocks per game. And at the end of the day, I think the Mavericks saw what they needed to see with Cooper Flag. They saw someone who is a very mature basketball player for his age, who still has some things to work on. The Mavericks put him in a lot of uncomfortable situations like playing point guard, where frankly his handle just needs to get a little bit tighter and a little bit better. And that’ll certainly come with time. And I think overall this was a successful experience for Cooper Flag and the Mavericks. I think both got positive things to take away from it. So, I’m pretty happy with how Cooper Flag played here in the summer league. I know there are some that are going to have red flags about his jump shot and about this and that, but all in all, the Mavs saw what they needed to see. I saw what I needed to see and I’m ready to see it here when the games start actually counting in the third week in October. I cannot wait to see Cooper Flag in a real Mavericks uniform. I’m gonna go with Ryan Nemhard as my second summer league winner. I think Nemhard showed me a lot and frankly I was surprised with what I saw from him. I was thinking he would be a little raw, maybe some things to work on, but I’ll be honest, he plays just like his brother, Andrew Nemhard of the Indiana Pacers, who was a key cog to that team that made the NBA Finals this season. He’s obviously a smaller version of him. Ryan sits at 5’11 and that’s being a little generous. So, he’s little on the smaller side, but I think he can come in and contribute meaningful minutes to this team and he is on a two-way contract which limits him to just being active for 50 games in the regular season. I think the Mavericks are going to max out those 50 games and at the end of the day, it would not surprise me if Ryan Nemhard was on the active roster later this season or early next season. He just knows how to run a team. He’s a very mature basketball player and he’s someone that I think the Mavericks could absolutely use. And given the injury to Kyrie Irving and the recovery that’s going to take, missing the first 50 games of the season, it would not surprise me if Ryan Nebard played a meaningful role for this basketball team. Very excited to see what he brings to this Mavericks team. And same goes for Miles Kelly, who the other two-way contract for the Mavericks right now. I think Kelly was pretty much as advertised as what I thought he was going to be, he can do it on both ends. And I think his ceiling and when he develops into a full-blown NBA player, he can be a 3 and D guy from that two guard position where he’s knocking down threes from the corner and he’s also guarding maybe the smaller wings. I like what I saw. He can handle the ball a little bit as well. I wouldn’t put him at the at a primary point guard position, but if you’re using him as a combo guard, I think the Mavericks could do a lot worse than Miles Kelly. So, I think the Mavericks scouting department uh and Nico Harrison did a good job on these two-way contracts getting Ryan Nemard and Miles Kelly here in the building as undrafted free agents. I think both of them could have roles to play for the Mavericks this season, and maybe they have long-term futures here in the NBA. I’ll ask you guys this question, though. Who is going to have the better career here in the NBA? Will it be Ryan Nemhard the guard out of Gonzaga? Or will it be Miles Kelly from Auburn? If you think it’s Nehard, type N. If you think it’s Kelly type K, let me know down there in the comment section. Right now, if I had to guess, I would say it’s Nemhard, but maybe Miles Kelly is the more ready to go NBA player right now. So, let me know what you guys think. Uh, continuing on Miles Kelly a little bit, look, I think that he’s the G-League is going to be a spot that he’s going to really be able to like hone his skills and kind of just I guess define the role and position he’s going to play for this Mavericks team on the Texas Legends. I think that they’re they run the same system that the Mavericks are running up here in the NBA. So, I think Kelly is going to be able to play a lot of combo guard, get some heavy minutes in the tank down there in the G-League, and if the Mavs need him on any given night in January, they should be able to go to Miles Kelly for 10 to 15 minutes. So, I really uh hopefully we get to see him out there in a real Mavericks uniform and not just the weird ones over down there in Fris. Max Lewis, another guy who I think was a winner for this team. And the reason why is Lewis has already played here in the NBA before. So, I think he kind of has a leg up on most of these guys for that final two-way contract spot. You get you get three of them. The Mavericks already have the two occupied in Kelly and Nemhard. I think Lewis could be that third guy. Maybe it’s someone not on the roster, but he did play 28 games in the NBA last season. And in these four uh summer league games, excuse me, he has shown the ability that people liked about him out of Pepperdine that made him a second round pick of the Los Angeles Lakers. When he got traded to Brooklyn, he didn’t get a whole lot of run there. But I think the Mavericks see someone sort of like a Kesler Edwards last season who could maybe play the small ball four if he really had to do it in case of emergency. He could go in there and play the ultra small ball five. Hopefully that doesn’t have to happen again where the Mavericks had to play Kesler Edwards in that role. But I think Max Lewis is more experienced than any of these guys that we’re talking about here. And if I had to guess right now, I think he would be the one that could take up that final two-way spot. But if the guy who has impressed me the most here in summer league for the Dallas Mavericks is Jordan Hall out of St. Joe’s. Now, Paul has, you know, had his cup of coffee in the league uh around, you know, this I believe this is his second year. And I would say he is the guy that I didn’t know much about, but the guy that I came away from the summer league that I said, “Wow, I think this guy can play a little bit.” He’s also 67, 215 pounds, but he can handle the rock. He can shoot it. He can defend as well. like and and I know this is summer league against the majority of guys who aren’t going to be playing NBA basketball, but Jordan Hall, like if you’re looking for a six, seven combo guard forward who can kind of do it all, he might be your guy. If there’s a two-way spot available, I think it’s between Hall and Lewis. If I would give Lewis the upper the upper edge there, but I think Hall will be on this Mavericks roster going into the preseason. And if he impresses Jason Kid there, you could see him as that final two-way spot. Hit that subscribe button if you haven’t already. We are your one-stop shop for all things Mavericks. Whether it’s news, whether it’s rumors, summer league analysis, live watch parties, we have you covered right here at youtube.com/mavstv. Help us get to 33,000 subscribers as soon as possible. All right, let’s go to the losers because of course there are losers in life as unfortunately is the case. We’re going to go with Melvin Ajinsa who is our loser here. And it’s unfortunate because I really thought that the Mavericks wanted to get a good look here at Melvin this summer, but he unfortunately dealt with a groin injury and missed basically the entire summer league. So, he was not uh he was not available to the Mavericks to play. He was their second round pick in the 2024 NBA draft. and he had a decent year over in Europe last year and the Mavs wanted to get another look at him uh here in the summer league, but they really just couldn’t get one because he sustained a groin injury and we don’t know when that happened. It may have been in the practices leading up to the summer league. So, unfortunately, uh the Mavs didn’t get any more information on Melvin and it sounds like he’s going to head back to San Quinton and Europe for another season. I’ll go with Jamaran Sharp is my other loser. And this is just because I don’t think he did anything particularly different than we already knew about him. We know he can block shots. We know that he’s just an absolute force in the paint defensively, but offensively he doesn’t bring you anything. And we just we didn’t learn anything new on Jamarian Sharp or anything that gave me like, oh, wow. He’s really developed his game to the point where maybe he has a shot in the NBA as a backup center. I really don’t think we got that out of Jamarian Sharp. So, that was a little disappointing because look, when you’re 75 and you’re blocking three shots a game out there in the G-League, you’d think that that guy has an NBA future, but I didn’t really see anything new from Sharp. So, that was a little disappointing. And this last one is a little cheating, but I’m going to go with Derrick Lively. And I know Dererick Lively didn’t play in the summer league, but during the summer league, we did learn that he underwent yet another surgery. And look, man, it’s just unfortunately concerning for Derek Lively because he he’s officially injuryprone. Like, and I was arguing with some people on Twitter and MA around the Mavericks spaces over the last year or so that Lively was an injuryrone player and they were like, “No, no, but he is. He had an injury that miss made him miss significant time at Duke. He had an injury that made him miss significant time in both of his two seasons with the Mavericks. and he has yet another surgery here in the off season that hopefully will not set him back. He’s expected to be ready for training camp by all accounts and is already out of the boot after having that surgery to remove the bone spurs in his foot. But the with the Mavericks team, we we’ve showed you the injury stats before, especially from the center position. You have Lively who gets injured a lot. Daniel Gaffford missed 25 games last season as well, so you hope that he can stay healthy if Lively can’t. Oh, and then you have Anthony Davis who’s one of the most injuryprone players out there. So, I am absolutely concerned about this Maverick center rotation. The problem is this. When you just look at this roster and the games missed last season, just look at how how many big numbers there are in that. Kyrie with 32, he’s going to miss 50. Anthony Davis missed 31 games last year. He you have to account for him missing at least 20. Lively was limited to just 36 games last season. He missed 46. BJ Washington and Gaffford both missed 25 games. D’Angelo Russell missed 24 games. Dante Exom was limited to just 20 games. So, you’re just you’re at a point where this Mavericks team I think the biggest concern it it’s not even close is the injury bucket. I pray and I hope that they have this medical staff figured out. I know they made changes once again this offseason to that. They brought in a new strength and conditioning coach. Hopefully that makes a positive change. But man, I’m very, very concerned about the health of this team going forward. And I know Derrick Lively isn’t a summer league loser, but he’s a loser, an offseason loser for me, so to speak, because he had yet another surgery. And hopefully his but hopefully his foot’s ready to go by that last week in September when the Mavericks report for training camp. All right, we’ve given you five winners and two and a half, I’ll say three losers here. Who is the biggest summer league winner and loser? Let me know down there in the comments section. Fire them off. If there’s someone I didn’t mention, let me know that as well. That will do it for today’s show, guys. Appreciate you for tuning in to Mavericks today by Chat Sports. Hope everyone has a great weekend. And of course, if anything happens regarding the Mavericks, you know where to find it.

The 2025 NBA Summer League for the Mavs is almost wrapped up, so it’s time for Summer League Winners and Losers! Cooper Flagg headlines the winners category with Flagg showing why the Mavs took him with the first overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. Ryan Nembhard and Miles Kelly who the Mavs signed to two-way contracts also showed their potential in front of Mavs GM Nico Harrison and Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd. We also discuss Melvin Ajinca, Maxwell Lewis, Dereck Lively and more on this episode of Mavericks Today by Chat Sports!

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2025 NBA Summer League Winners for the Mavs:
Cooper Flagg
Andrew Nembhard
Miles Kelly
Maxwell Lewis
Jordan Hall

We’ve got more Mavs YouTube videos for you to check out!:
– The BIGGEST PROBLEM With The Dallas Mavericks This Season: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tWWamMOgSg
– Mavs Fans Get Great News On Kyrie Irving + Bleacher Report DISRESPECTS Dirk Nowitzki | Mavs Rumors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHC-3Nm4L-Y
– Cooper Flagg Update During 2025 NBA Summer League + Mark Cuban Thinks Mavs Can Win 2026 NBA TItle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcxFMSiAtFA

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– WHATCHA THINK? Who is the best player on the Mavericks?
– Who will have the better career? N for Nembhard, K for Kelly
– Biggest Summer League Winner AND Loser? Let me know!

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Dallas Mavericks 2025 NBA Summer League Losers:
Melvin Ajinca
Jamarion Sharp
Dereck Lively II

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