Can the Mavs GAMBLE on Anthony Davis & Kyrie Irving in Their Prime Years | Cooper Flagg’s ROY Route

Can the Mavs GAMBLE on Anthony Davis & Kyrie Irving in Their Prime Years | Cooper Flagg’s ROY Route

On today’s show, if it comes down to it, should the Mavs prioritize more help for Cooper Flag for the future or Anthony Davis’s prime right now? It’s a question they may have to answer and we will on today’s maps. Stop it. Stop. The number one pick will go to the Dallas Mavericks. Cooper flag will fly in Dallas. All of you are Locked on M. Your daily Mavericks podcast, part of the locked on podcast network. I still can’t leave the your team every day. I’m going to get a city right back. And welcome. You are locked on to the Dallas Mavericks. Your team every day. My name is Nick Hankstead. Medium member covering the maps for 10 years. Thanks for being every day. Making locked on maps. Your first listen. This episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use the code locked on NBA all one word at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. And joining me as always, my co-host, media member, coming to the master 10 years right alongside me, the text line lover. The one we’re more thinking. What you got for me, Isaac Harris? Shout out to all the questions we got a few days ago. If you haven’t been subscribed to our text line, this is how we’re going to we’re going to do at least one show every day, every week of the summer or this off season. Um, answering questions from this text line. So, shout out a text the other day. Kind of let the the subs know what we’re doing. And I mean in a matter of minutes firing off I’m like dude we had to we could do like four shows on these questions. So thank you to everyone who sent questions in. So many. We’re going to talk about Cooper Flags route to the number to the rookie of the year. We’ll talk about the odds for that. We’ll also talk about what’s more important backline defense, point of attack defense. Uh who Cooper Flag’s best like helper like Steve Nash figure like Steve Nash was the Durk? A lot of good questions like that. But let’s start here. Isaac Harris. One of them came from our friend Joe on the text line. He said, “If for some reason Kyrie doesn’t come back and the team is just at like 500 or below, is it worth losing out to get another young player alongside Cooper Flag while wasting a year of Anthony Davis’s prime?” And I think this is fascinating because it comes it comes down to what’s more important, trying to squeeze everything you can get out of Anthony Davis’s prime right now in a in a win now team, which we believe this is. But if Kyrie doesn’t come back like Kyrie has warned, hey, don’t hold your breath. I might not come back for the playoffs even. Then is it worth it or should they shut some guys down and go and like and try to get somebody else with Cooper flag and try and get another young player because they do own their pick in 2026. That is a possibility for the Mavericks. It is not for a team like the Suns, the Bucks, some of those teams that are that now have 10% of their cap dead for the next five years, which is which is wild. uh as an aside, but it’s a fascinating question and to me I think I’ve been the guy that has has been like let’s focus on Cooper Flag. Let’s focus on the future. But I think if it came down to it, I would want them to win and I would want that that experience for Cooper Flag more than I would want them to just like try their luck at getting somebody in the draft. That’s what it came down to. I think the question I would fire back is like where where would the Mavs have to be in the standings if Ky if it came out and said Kyrie Here’s the here’s the thing if it came out they came out and said hey Kyrie’s not going to come back the regular season he’s shooting for the playoffs postseason basketball the end of the regular season where would the Mavs have to be in the standings for you to be like yeah just don’t come back let’s just let’s just get the draft pick. Is there a scenario where if if they’re if they’re there if they’re in dire straits like that and Kyrie’s like I’m coming back for the playoffs. Is there a scenario where he comes back for a playin game? I know. That’s what I’m saying. Like and let’s make sense. Let’s assume AD was like healthy. I feel like like the answer from the Mavs would be yes. They would just win playin game or not. It’s like oh yeah, if we’re going to have our full squad healthy going into a playin game, then yes, we’re going all out. we’re trying and and all the stuff. Cooper’s changed so much with like the future of stuff, but we still haven’t seen um drafting Cooper flag is the most forwardthinking thing Nico has done in a while, right? Like I mean there is a scenario a lot of thinking. there was a scenario in which he could have took Cooper flag and said, “Hey, Giannis or I mean like that there’s a reason why so many fans were like scared initially, right? Like legitimately scared like dude, Nico might trade this pick because it’s all about these like two years here.” So I don’t they shouldn’t like Yeah. I think it’s really tough for me because I’ve really thought about this since this question came in because Chub Cooper’s changed everything to where yes, you need young pieces around him in the future. I would have to have it would have to be that. It would have to be they’re in the like 8 n 10 spot at the end of the regular season. Kyrie’s only coming back for the playin or or a playoff series. And AD has had a few Yeah, that’s like a few inje time like few little injuries throughout the season to where he missed like a week or something. If all of those lined up, I would be in the camp of saying let’s get the draft pick. Cuz the thing is one of the things that I was talking about the end of last season when I was like just just went out like just play just keep playing and and keep going up because the your odds don’t change that much. Now the Mavs did get the number one pick with 1.8% 8%. So, but your odds if you go from uh 11 all the way to seven, it goes from like 2% to 7.5% chance to get the number one pick like that. I will say the the 2026 draft next year, especially when you get I mean it’s it’s deeper at the top or at least right now it is. And some of those guys I mean one through five or six. What people said that about this one too and then it ended up being a two-player like a a one and a half player draft. They’re like there’s one and then there’s Flag and then there’s everybody else. And it’s like because people were talking about could Ace Bailey be number one. They were talking about there there’s just a I feel like there was a couple guys that got pushed down in this. Well, I I think the top of next year’s draft is pretty is pretty loaded again. So, but but that’s that’s the thing. I think it would take a very special set of circumstances for you to say, “Hey, let’s just go for the draft pick.” And it’d have to be like super late in the season, barring AD having some catastrophic injury at the first of the season and then Kyrie’s out most of the year. then like that’s shifting all the timelines at that point. So, but yeah, I think I think you almost have to like I think no matter where you’re at entering that like final stretch of the season post all-star break, let’s say Kyrie comes back at the All-Star break, if everybody’s healthy or if like even like remotely healthy, like you’re going all for it because you’ve invested in this team that that way, right? So, yeah, hopefully that’s not even we don’t even have to have that discussion. from Rohan. Another friend from the text line. By having less pressure, writers of Rohan. Riders of Rohan. I don’t think they’re writing. By having less pressure and a better situation as a number one pick, do you feel that uh that that being on the By having this doesn’t make any sense, by having less pressure in a better situation as a number one pick, does that reduce Cooper Flag’s chances of getting rookie of the year because he’s basically gonna be on a better team and he’s not gonna have the ball in his hands all the time? the classic argument that his counting stats would probably be lower because he’s going to be on a winning team and all that. Where do you stand with that? Because we’ve seen I think we’ve seen it both ways with with you know rookie of the year in the NBA. Yeah, this is I think it was yesterday that we kind of uh debated it a little bit or like talked about uh what could happen at at the end of the season with rookie of the year. Um because you look at rookie of the year odds of FanDuel right now, Cooper Flag is minus 7 minus 170. The next next highest one is Trey Johnson at a plus 950. That is a gap. That isap massive. And then it’s Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey, VJ, Derek Queen. Um I think there there could be a scenario now. Dylan Harper did go to a team that he might not have like a a predominant role on. Um and it would take gonna be good. Yeah. And it would take Trey Johnson or Ace Bailey or VJ just I mean having like a super high points per game on a bad team for them to you know rival Cooper or something. It’s just there could be there there is a scenario in which everybody is arguing at the end of the season well Cooper’s on a winning team. He affects winning but his numbers are a little lower than typical rookie the rookie of the years. And then you got like a guy like Ace Bailey who’s getting a ton of shots in Utah and he’s averaging over 20 points a game. And then there’s this like argument of media back and forth. Well, did you see the numbers that Ace is putting up? It’s like, okay, cool. Y’all suck. So anyway, I I I think his numbers will be lower, but I don’t I don’t like any of the other situations a ton. I’m not confident enough to say somebody’s gonna rival him. It’s hard for me to imagine a Trey Johnson and Ace Bailey being good enough and having enough efficient stats and enough and enough people seeing them in order for them to to pick him over Cooper because the Mavs are going to have some national TV games and they’re going to be out there and if he plays well in those in front of people and like the talk is how good Cooper Cooper has been all over that I think they’re I think the voters have gotten gotten smarter in the sense that they look at that stuff and not just straight counting stats anymore. And so I don’t think I don’t think it reduces his chances at all. I I’m looking at Harper and VJ as the only ones that I’m like that would like keep an eye on them. Like if Embiid’s healthy if uh and they’re like dec you know decent and VJ’s playing a predominant role on that team. I could see that. Um if like an injury happens with Fox or something I think Harper is that good to where if they didn’t have Fox I would be very worried and because I think he’s that good on a Spurs team. But Fox has kind of got that locked down. Yeah, that team should be good. The Mavs should be good. That be interested to see their roles on that. The other two teams we mentioned and probably the Sixers will probably not be good. That’s where they’re going to be there. Coming up, what’s more important? Backline defense, perimeter defense. I’m curious what you guys think about that. We’ll talk about that in more coming [Music] episode of Lockdown Apps brought to you by Open Phone. If you’re a small business owner, you know that there are so many things you got to keep track of. If you’re running a business, every missed call is money left on the table. Think about that. The last time you had an urgent need, maybe for a plumber or service provider, if the first person didn’t answer, what did you do? I I tell you what I do. I call a different service and I call somebody else to try and get them to come fix whatever I need. Open Phone is the number one business phone system built to streamline and scale your customer communications all from an app on your phone or computer. They have a shared inbox, which is a game changer. Your team can jump into any conversation instantly without missing a beat. So you don’t have to be on call all the time, which is great. Open Phone is offering our listeners 20% off the first 6 months at openphone.com/lockonba. Open phone op.com/lockdon NBA. And if you have existing numbers with another service, open phone will port them over at no extra charge. Open phone, no missed calls, no missed customers. Shut it down. Let’s go home. Thanks for hanging out with us on Locked Up Maps, being part of the show. Part of the raccoon squad. That’s what we call our listeners listening every single day. We appreciate you for checking out the show. We’ll be here 5 days a week all through the summer, baby. So, let’s go, baby. Stick with us. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to our text line. Click the link in the description to uh get that. We’ve been answering some of your questions on there. One of them we got I found interesting from Edwin. What’s more important to you, backline defense or perimeter defense? Concern meter from He did 1 to 10. I like doing zero to five. I think it it’s a little bit better. With the lack of a concern meter 0 to five with the lack of elite perimeter defense, I reserve the right to change your questions. It’s my show. Poor Edwin. I’m with you, Edwin. I I’ll do a one to 10 thing. Which one is Which one is better? The one or the 10? If you do zero to five, it’s obvious zero is the worst. Five is the best. Okay. That’s why I always do zero to five. But then you have six numbers to pick. It’s fine. What’s the 10 is is like just a random like an arbitrary number. That’s true. That’s true. Zero to five it is. Uh okay. The first question. What’s more important? Backline defense or perimeter defense? I honestly went back and forth on this because I’m like, well, you know, if you doesn’t matter about the perimeter defense if it’s good or bad, then if you have a backline guy, then whatever. I but I I think I’ve landed pretty good on perimeter defense means more. Especially in this in the the game today in which there’s so many three-pointers taken, you got to be able to hit a ton of threes. And it’s just you got to have guys that can chase guys around on the perimeter, that can go through screens, that can um it’s hard to really lock up people nowadays because there’s so much flopping and selling and grifting and all the crap. Uh, but I just think the perimeter stuff is more more important. I think you can do both, right? Like I think both of them you can have a good defense by having one by having like one or the other. Case in point, Rudy Gobear, like Rudy Gobear and Utah, you know, a handful of years ago, like Donovan Mitchell and Joe Engles and some of those guys was good. Those those aren’t like they’re not on the all defensive teams, but he I mean he was the reason why that’s that was one of the best defenses out there. Well, yeah. You look at Cleveland right now. Cleveland with Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland small guard and you have two rim protectors and they’ve got a really great defense. You look at Minnesota right now and what they have. Anthony Edwards is can be good on defense but sometimes isn’t. Mike Connley is is older now and is not. They got McDaniels. He’s good. Yeah, that’s true. Uh Oklahoma City said he has both. Um, Orlando is one where they got perimeter defense for sure. And I don’t know that you think of Wendell Carter Jr. is a great rim protector. Houston is the other example. Houston had an incredible defense. They got Shenun like in the back line. That’s the opposite of the Cleveland. Yeah. An older Steven Adams too, right? Boston has KP in and out of the lineup and so they rely on their perimeter defense with Derek White. I was listening to Locked on Clippers recently and he was talking about who should be in the starting lineup now that they have Bradley Beal and he was like there is not one contending team that doesn’t start a elite or above average perimeter attack defender because he was trying to make the case that Bradley Bill probably shouldn’t start and they should start Dunn or Derek Jones Jr. old friend or something like that because they all start like a really good perimeter attack defender and I was like that’s a pretty good point. Yeah, I’d have to look at the roster on that, but yeah, I’m I’m kind of with him on that. This is one of my thing. I mean, let’s go to the second part. Concern meter 1 to 10 with the lack of elite perimeter defense. Um I think even I mean, we even got a question um not to jump on this, but from Chase of like what’s the biggest strength and weakness this season? And I’m going to lump these together. I think their biggest weakness and the reason why my concern meter is like a what’ you say five was the most concern zero is zero concern. It’s odd. It’s zero. I was just kidding. Um that’s why I honestly put it like a four for me. You’re that concerned? I am just because there’s so many good point guards out there and I get it. I can be proven wrong and y’all tell me I’m stupid. Sure. of like, hey, well, it doesn’t matter who we put out there. We have so much size and backline defense, then it doesn’t matter a lot. I’m just I’m I’m like I fall into the pressure of like you got to have that point of attack defender. There’s so many good point guards. You got to have that guy out there, a Lou Dort, a Caruso, whoever it is that can. And the way the Mavs team is set up right now, DLo, Clay, I mean, even Cooper asking him to like chase people around. It’s not just like, hey, can you stay in front of somebody? You got to chase the Steph Curry of the world around. Like, point guards never stop. So, you got to just chase them around the floor, too. And that just wears people out. So, I’m I’m concerned about it. And I think that’s their biggest weakness. I’m at a two. Oh, I thought about doing a one. I also thought about doing a zero. You’re not concerned at all. I thought I I thought about it. I went up to it, too. Okay. The two is if they are thinking about making a playoff run, I would be concerned in a regular season. Look at what the Cavs just did. The Cavs started Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. They played Ty Jerome a bunch. Like that’s a that’s a great point. Yeah. They didn’t get DeAndre Hunter until later. They had Caris Levert coming off the their bench a bunch, right? like Max Streus who was, you know, a better defender, but still like they didn’t have an elite guy and they were a very good defense. Ended up being the eighth best defense this season and were one of the best ones last year. And so that that is the example that I look at and being like, “Okay, this this can work out.” And I think Caleb Martin is better than people remember. I think Max Christie can be better than than people remember. And I think those guys can and and Clay was solid last year. I don’t think like he’s definitely solid now. His legs are going to be better this year. I think better. I think it’ll be better. Uh the set shots, it’s going to be a little bit more set shots this year. Putting in that work, though. Um are you concerned about other teams? Can you listen to a Megan the Stallion song? Are you Are you concerned about other teams hitting a ton of threes against us? Because if your if your perimeter defense is so bad, then they can get past you, get into the paint, it’s going to cause rotations. You and AD’s he can’t get out there on time to stretch four or Cooper’s having to help and leaving a guy or Lively, whoever. And yeah, that that’s one of the things of like it’s not just, hey, Donovan Mitchell will torch DLO and score a ton of points. It’s Donovan Mitchell get past he get into the paint and hit a guy in the corner a Sam Marrow who they gave too much money to and he’s just going to hit like five threes or something. So that’s that’s the like I’m a little worried about that. But can we take a second? Can we take a second? We’re doing a project for Locked On that’ll come out soon. They just did the NFL one where they did top 100 players and we were asked to do like four or five the four or five best players on on each of our teams and write them down. Yeah. that we could consider potentially in the top in the top. If the Cavs guys put Sam Earl in the top four, I don’t know what the he put Sam Marl, but it was like his seventh player or something like that. But he put he included it in the list and I was like, “Oh, come on.” Like, Danny, come on. Come on, bud. Did you put Omax in ours? Maybe he didn’t understand the point of it was to put players we think could be in the top 100, but he put Sam Merlin. I was laughing about that today. Yeah. No, I I And the other thing is like at what level are they going to are we talking about them in a Western Conference Finals then? Yeah, I’d be concerned about their if not then even in a first round series I think they’d have enough. But the the the problem that you bring up is the whole problem the Mavs are going to have all season is the threepoint deficit. They are going to be in a deficit in like every single game. They don’t have enough three-point shooters. Even with D’Angel Russell and Klay Thompson, they don’t have enough. They barely had enough with Luca and Kyrie taking like 10 a taking like 20 a game between the two of them. And so I think that that’s that’s gonna be an issue. And then yeah, teams are going to hit threes on them because dealer is like they’re not going into the paint. They’re not going to go into the paint. They’re not going to score at the rim, right? Like Yeah. No. No. So I’ll be interested to see I mean unless unless they’re playing against a team that’s playing that’s so committed to a five out and it is like fully pulling an AD Lively away from the basket and something like that. But that’s that’s going to take a unique situation. The other thing about that though is if it pulls AD and Lively away, then whoever’s closest to the ball can come help and flag too, right? They’re so unique that they can that they can recover well on on those things because they have they have so many defensive options in that way. You’re not just pulling, you know, you’re not just taking Rudy Goar. He’s your one perimeter. He’s your one anchor going away. You have like three. Flag, AD, and Lively are all playing. And typically if a team goes five out then they’re playing a little smaller. You would take advantage on the other end with an Anthony Davis Cooper flag and and all the size and stuff. Once again, I’m not it’s not like, hey, this is the thing that’s going to keep them from being above 500. No, I’m not that. I’m just saying like if I have to pick a weakness for this team, that’s my answer. And I am a tad bit more concerned about it. Concerned in a relative way of, hey, this is the one thing that could like give them trouble this year. Coming up, Durk had Steve Nash to help guide him early in his career. I know the player that’s going to help Cooper Flag early in his career. We’ll talk about that and more coming. [Music] Today’s episode of Lock Apps brought to you by Monarch Money. Just like Steve Nash helped guide Dirk through the early days in his career, Monarch Money can help guide you through managing your money and then building wealth, taking it to that next level to figure out how to manage all your different kinds of things. Accounts, investment, spending, all in one place. For me, I got mortgage, 401k, credit cards, savings accounts, student loans, all kinds of stuff. Yeah, it’s flexing my student loans. Flexing my student loans over here that I still have. Um, all kinds of stuff. And it’s hard to keep track of everything, all the different transactions. I’m paying with different credit cards to get different points and all that. I’m playing I’m trying to play that game and all that. And Monarch Money helps to put all that stuff in one spot. And it helps with different things, different flowcharts to see how things are are going, to see if you’re in a deficit, to see if you’re spending too much, if you’re not spending enough or whatever. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code lockdown NBA at Monarch Money for 50% off. That’s half off your entire first year. That’s monarchoney.com. Code locked on NBA. It’s locked on NBA all one word. L O C D O NA for half off your first year at monarchmoney.com. Shut it down. Let’s go. [Music] All right, Isaac, we’re talking about the Mavs. We’re answering your questions about the Dallas Mavericks. We’ve got the text line where we get these questions. We do Q&A every once in a while where we answer your questions, too. And we’ll send all the answers to all these questions to everybody, which is fun. We do some mailbags like that. But we’re doing on the show today. Let’s get into the next question from our guy Jacob. Durk had Steve Nash to guide him early in his NBA career. If you’re looking at the current Mavs roster, who do you see as the ideal Nash figure to help Cooper Flag adjust to the league and reach his potential? And Nash figure is is fascinating because Nash was like a contemporary with Dirk. He was around the same age. He was just a little older, had been in the NBA a little longer. And to me, it’s obviously Derk Lively. That’s good. I didn’t think about it from that angle. I just I probably didn’t even finish the sentence. So, I was just like, “Oh, who’s going to be the mentor?” I mean, the me the mentor he’s pick take make your choice. Anthony Davis, Kyrie, LeBron James, Klay Thompson. Like, he’s got so many different people to choose to choose from. You were waiting for that, too. I hope you fall over in your chair. LeBron James, can I just say something real quick? No, not about LeBron. I don’t know. This is what makes fandom fun though is like when when you have like nemesis or like nemesis like you and Kyle Anderson. Um when you have people when you sports hate someone, you know, when you you know all that stuff and you don’t like someone, I’m always going to be a guy like that. There’s there I think there’s too many fans media people out there that’s just like everything’s great, love everyone. And that’s just like I don’t know. It’s just not fun. So, I’m always going to talk about the people I love. I’m always going to talk about the people I don’t love and I don’t sports, you know, love. Uh, so it I think it’s just part of fun and it’s it’s entertaining, too. So, are you aware you’re aligning yourself with Skip Bis with this this approach you’ve taken? I mean, I guess there’s some success for him because he’s What’s skip up to these days? Okay. Um, so I think Kyrie’s like an obvious like I think Kyrie would take anybody under his his wing and it’s like, “Dude, I’m gonna like be your guy.” Um, and like just teach. I think we’re going to see so many clips this year of like Kyrie talking with him and showing him different things. I think it’d be cool for like Anthony Davis because of the position and it’s like I think there’s a lot of similarities with that when AD came in the hype. I would love for Clay um if Klay has time and just with the the shot stuff and and the vet and winning the rings and all that. But yeah, I mean I I think it is Lively is the easy answer to that of couple years older. He’s been to an NBA finals too. Hopefully he can stay healthy to where they like they’re playing a lot of minutes together too. It’s not just like somebody on the bench in street clothes. So, I think that yeah, that’s going to be I hope that pairing stays together and stays healthy cuz that would just be such a fun duo to like root for. I I want that so bad for those two guys to be the building block of the Mavs next step after this. Like people are trying to do that with Cooper and Nimhard right now and it’s like it’s fun for summer league, but one of these guys is not like the other. All right. Uh Nimhard’s going to be in Fris a lot. So Lively and Cooper should be playing a lot of minutes together. Well, they’re not pictures of Lively and Cooper together practicing. That’s true. Do those things. And we did talk about Lively’s uh procedure. We talked about that yesterday. So listen to that show if you missed that one. Um which of these two things are more likely to happen this season? Mavs miss the playoffs. Mavs win the title. I mean, I feel like the odds is better to just say miss the playoffs. Do we have odds? We should have odds on that. The odds will tell you to miss the playoffs because there’s only one I mean there’s only one team that’s going to that can win the NBA finals. Um there are what how many how many teams now that we have the participation? Mavs to win the title. Ready for this on FanDuel are good friends. Plus 3500 to win the title which is like what spot is that? Way down. How many teams are in front of them? Way down. Like so many. Uh Sixers are ahead of them. Hawks are ahead of them. Warriors Sixers are ahead of them. Yes. What? They’re plus 3,400. What? The Sixers. And put some money down and maybe they’ll move it. Maybe they’ll move it up. Sixers, Hawks, Warriors, Clippers, Timberwolves, Lakers, Magic, Rockets, Cavs, Nuggets, Knicks, Thunder all have better odds to win the title. And uh Pistons are right below them. Celtics are below them. Bucks are below them. The Warriors, too. Yeah, Warriors get a bump because they’re a really popular team. Interesting. Mavs to miss Mavs to miss the playoffs minus 132. Wow. To make the playoffs plus 100. So, you’re getting you have to bet $132 to win $100 for that. Here’s the thingus, which means it’s the which means it’s it’s likely. The question is miss the playoffs or win the title. There are six six teams in the conference that missed the playin. Exactly. Or five teams. Um and then you know you do your thing from that what seven seven teams in each conference that missed the playoffs. So one team wins the title. So the odds would say miss. I will say this. I will caveat with this. I’m not saying that hey they should be right there at the top you know NBA title stuff. They have the talent to go on a super deep NBA like playoff run. It is. It for me it is purely on health. Purely on health for sure. So it is not like unheard of. I don’t think it’s like insane to say, “Hey, Dallas could win the title this year.” I don’t think that’s insane if you just fully caveat with if they’re fully healthy. And it’s just tough because they have a lot of injury stuff right now concerns and AD stuff and and all that. So, but I think they have the talent. There’s a lot of teams out there I think you look at and say, “Uh, they just don’t have the talent. I don’t care if they have the they’re eating an apple every day and you know they’re super healthy. I don’t honestly I would say that about the 76ers. I don’t believe in Paul I don’t believe in Paul George and Embiid has never been to a conference finals. Kyrie AD and Clay have all won titles. Like that’s just different. When was the last time we’ve seen Paul George and MBB like good? Paul George was really good the year that they beat the Mavs in the playoffs and they went to the conference finals for the Clippers. How long ago was that? I know this is like 2021, wasn’t it? I just feel like the level that we seen Kyrie at last year, the level we seen AD at before, you know, some injur like last year he was better than LeBron for a lot of the season and it was like one of those years where you’re like, “Oh, here’s AD and then he gets hurt.” Yeah. So, like I feel like we’ve seen the Mavs guys be good, you know. Yeah. More recently. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. And then I would pick Flag impacting winning more than BJ Hum early. And Kane and Maxi obviously, but I mean I love their young guys. I love the VJ, you know, McCain Maxi. I think Sixers also get an East bump instead of the Hawks for sure. Oh yeah, that’s true. Yeah, that’s true. Uh any thoughts on the summer league game? We talked zero minutes about it so far. Mavs lose to the 76ers, quote unquote Mavs. Uh, our guy Nemhard didn’t play. Cooper Flag obviously didn’t play. Got to see Miles Kelly 21 points, hit a couple of threes. And I love Miles Kelly. He’s my guy. Kim Vers Broom. Uh, I thought, yeah, I thought Maxis had some cool moments in the game. He had a cool stretch there. Um, that’s about it, man. I mean, there are different like small things that no one like cares about. Like, hey, I like this little play here or this. Yeah. So, I’m kind of done watching watching that. Miles Kelly’s on a two-way with the Mavs. No one else on this team should get the third two-way in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, just a reminder, like there’s a two-way spot open up right now, so that’s pretty much the only spot. There’s some camp invites like we we’ll see some like camp invites and stuff. Um, but like it’s just like a two-way spot up for grabs. Like right now at this moment, they don’t really have a spot for Axom. So, we talked about on yesterday, they got to create a spot for AXM at some point. Um, but yeah, Nimhard, Miles Kelly is two of those three two-way spots. We’ll see what they do to fill it. They could sign a guy from another team or wait till camp and see what positional battles happen and stuff like that. So, yeah, there’s no CBA way to convert Omax to a two-way. He would have to like agree to take a lot less money and like rip up his contract. I mean, he’s been in the league two years now. I don’t know what it’s four years. Okay. He could like functionally he could be, but is it like salary wise? He’d have to like literally rip up his contract. That’s the way that they could keep him. No, I wouldn’t do that if I was him. No, of course not. You lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah. Tell you, man. Tough one. Tough one for your guy. Guys, thanks for hanging out with us on Locked on Maps. We’ll be back tomorrow with more. We’ll be breaking down uh me and Isaac and Slightly the threeman weave back talking. We’re gonna do NBA over and unders. We’re going to do we’re going to draft our favorite overs and our favorite unders for season win totals. We’re do that tomorrow. It’ll be a long show. So, I hope you enjoy that guys. Thanks so much for listening to Locked on Mavs. Peace out. Boom. Going to get a seat at the table.

The Dallas Mavericks face tough decisions regarding Cooper Flagg’s future and Anthony Davis’s prime. Should the Mavs prioritize building around Flagg or maximizing Davis’s current abilities in the NBA?

Nick Angstadt and Isaac Harris discuss the Mavs’ roster construction, defensive concerns, and potential mentors for Cooper Flagg. They analyze the team’s chances of making the playoffs versus winning an NBA title, mentioning Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, and Dereck Lively II’s roles. The hosts also touch on the Mavs’ summer league performance and the importance of perimeter defense in today’s NBA.

0:00 Cooper Flagg’s Impact on Mavs’ Future Gabmles
7:18 Flagg’s Rookie of the Year Route
10:30 Mavs’ Defensive Concerns
21:18 Cooper Flagg’s Mentor on Mavs
26:16 Mavs’ Playoff Odds vs Title Chances
30:20 Summer League Recap…

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