Mavs Executives are BUZZING About Cooper Flagg’s UNSTOPPABLE Mentality for the Dallas Mavericks

Mavs Executives are BUZZING About Cooper Flagg’s UNSTOPPABLE Mentality for the Dallas Mavericks

On today’s show, Cooper Flag has one thing that’ll make him an unbustable prospect. We’ll talk about that and defend our takes today on Locked on Mavs. Stop it. Let’s just stop. The number one pick will go to the Dallas Mavericks. Cooper flag will fly in Dallas. You are locked on. Your daily Mavericks podcast part of the locked on podcast network. Still can’t leave. Your team every day. I’m going to get a city like back and welcome you locked on to the Dallas Mavericks. Your team every day. My name is Nick Angstead medium member covering the M for 10 years. Thanks for being an everyday making lock on mass your first listen every day. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets and your first $5 bet wins. And joining me as always my cohost medium member covering the M for 10 years right alongside me the take titan the one more thing king. What you got for me Isaac Harris? Take off Thursday baby. I’m ready. This is what first This is what First Take does every day. Take it off. Wait, we playing shirts and skins. Take off. You drop a take, you take a article of clothing off. Is this the type of show we’re doing here? I like that. It’s the summer. We got to get viewers. They’re really desperate for topics. These guys don’t know what they’re talking about anymore. And as always, the postgame prodigy from the great Sly Bias YouTube channel. It’s a threeman weave. What you got for me, Slightly Biased? Is this coming out tonight? Yeah. Okay. 12 hours from now, I’ll be out of my cast. Oh, let’s go. Or at least I hope so. Slightly healthy. He’s slightly healthy again. Slightly is the right word. I’m getting there. Slightly. Today’s episode, we’re going to play Takeoff Thursday, like Isaac said, where we’re going to go around. Each of us is going to present a take and we’ll have to defend it to the other people and see what we think about it. And so, slightly share one. Isaac’s got one. And uh I’m going to start off, boys. Oh, start us off. My take is Cooper Flag’s mentality makes him impossible to bust. His mentality specifically is going to make it impossible for him to be a bust of a player because I was reading this article from Keith Smith on Sprack. Great stuff over there. And he talked to a bunch of executives, scouts, different people that work with teams and stuff like that. And there was a story in there that really stood out to me. It’s just another one of these stories that we’re going to hear a ton like this. And I love him. Every single one of them. Feed him to me. Injected into my veins. This is from a Maverick’s front office executive. Since we selected Cooper Flag, he’s been everything we’d thought he’d be on and and even more. Tremendous kid on and off the court. Here’s a good story for you. He shot like crap in the first game in here in summer league. Second game, he dominated. We had a plan to play only two games. Cooper comes to us and the coaches and asked to play a third game. We laughed and told him, “No, you’re good.” and he goes, “I just don’t want people to think the good game was a fluke. All we could do was laugh, but it shows how much he wants to be great.” A Maverick’s front office executive had. To me, I look at that, see the mentality of I’m out here to dominate and to show that it wasn’t that I’m not just some kind of fluke that it’s not I’m not going to be a bus that I’m going to be out here and actually be what I’m about, be the number one pick and live up to that hype. And I think that that mentality, his athletic ability, his size there, you know, his ability is one thing. To me, that mentality is what takes you from a good player or just an NBA player to like a a really good great player. Yeah. Does Cooper care more about public perception? Coming up next? Uh if I was going to go real skip bail on it, I was I would take that. I was like, is the pressure already getting to Cooper flag that he’s forcing summer league games? I will say I’m glad you added the last part because I was going to I was going to have fun with it and say, “All right, if Cooper was 5 foot2 and he had this mentality, I still don’t know if that I don’t know if that would be enough.” But no, I love Yeah, I love this. You sent it to me earlier today and I was reading through the quotes and that was obviously the one that that stood out to me. and um you know they were going against Khan in Charlotte in that third game so I’m sure he wanted to do that but just the fact that this isn’t something that you heard in a press conference um or like Cooper said himself in a you know in a media session or something this was likeative yeah it’s not performative like this is like a just a random person telling somebody about like you don’t make something like this up and so I I think it’s yeah I think it’s pretty awesome yeah I mean if sounds Good to hear that for sure. I I would say I would just I don’t think he’s going to be I think he’s going to be an incredible NBA player. Uh I think you’re just tempting fate when you throw out certain terms and unbustable especially for a first overall pick. There’s a high standard, you know, like Andrew Wiggins has made an all-star game. Uh would you consider him like a uber successful first overall pick? Probably not. Uh or a complete bust. Like I don’t know if he’s a complete bust. I wouldn’t go complete bust because you have complete bust first overall picks. Like DeAndre Aton’s a good one. Fine NBA player. Sure. A bust. Yes. He’s a bust in my got a max contract. Yeah, he did. And he completed his number one career goal in doing so. But uh the How do you How do you get to bust status? Obviously like Anthony Bennett for sure. Greg Greg Odin. Well, you have those buzz, but I think eight like if you’re the number one overall pick and it has to be context like if Ree Sha has a eight and like career where he gets paid, maybe doesn’t make an all-star game and is just like a fine player. I think in the context of that draft, I don’t think that’s bad. But in the context of a 2018 draft, I’d call eight a bust 100%. You have MVP candidates in the draft. Yeah. You compare him to Luca, you compare him to some of the other like even even Trey Young in that in that draft, Jiren Jackson, like all of these guys are better. And then the Greg Oda one, obviously his is injuries, but you compare that to Kevin Durant and you’re like, “Yeah, this one of the best players of all time.” Yeah. And to Sally’s point, it’s like when you’re one of those type of prospects, too, there’s just different expectations. Like if you’re if we’re going to have all the conversations of well he’s the best since Zion and Anthony Davis and Wimi and it’s like those type of number one picks then yeah I mean you I mean what is a bust for Cooper Flag in his career? Um you know is a couple all-star games but no finals appearances a bust. Um, yeah. I I just think when you the level that he’s going into the NBA at, like you have to this is multiple allstars, all NBAs, you’re take, you know, you’re helping helping carrying a team to a finals eventually. Oh, okay. So, I have a question to piggyback off this because this was one of the common, I guess, push backs against Flag. Even though when people would describe this, I’d be like, that still sounds great to me. to be this like elite doit all number two who you could plug in and he’d be like a perfect number two guy for a championship. M is that would that be considered if that ended up being his career where he was kind of like I say Anthony Davis because Anthony Davis is like a number two but I think Anthony yeah like if he turned into a I mean Pip and sure is that or like a Seakum I think Seakum is maybe the better the better route that type of player where he’s top 30 he’s making all stars all NBAs you don’t think that’s a bust I if you help a team if you’re like the clear-cut number two you get a ring and you’re making allstar all-star like games then I don’t think that’s a bust. I agree because I saw people say that I’m like that doesn’t like people who are get like not anti- flag but less bullish on him like he’s like a Seattle I’m like that sounds great to me. I mean that’s that’s a great NBA player. Yeah. And and a lot of that’s due to context too. It’s like if if you know Dallas trades for somebody that is clearly like the alpha, it’s going to have a ton of points and all this stuff, but Cooper’s like right there with him, but his stats are lower, but he is that like Kawawaii Pippen, you know, that type of guy, then it’s I don’t Yeah, I don’t think I would like hold it against him. Yeah. If he never makes an allNBA team, is he a bust? Does he win a ring? No. So, just some all stars, but no some all stars, really good player, hanging around for a while. No AllNBAs and no titles. No titles. I think that’s disappointing for his level of prospect. I wouldn’t say bust, but I’d say disappointing. Yeah, the bar is high for him. The bar The bar is definitely high for him, and it should be. He’s that good of a player. Well, especially I mean, heck, they talk every year about expanding the all-star teams, which is stupid. And it’s like just handing out allstars left and right. So the all-star appearances might diminish at some point. The all-star participation game. Yeah. Kind of like the playin. What would is there a scenario where we know Cooper Flag could be a bust in year one? Like year one is done. Do you think we know after one year? I mean, there’s some like efficiency things where it’s just like historically if guys are that bad, they don’t usually develop or at least they’re that’s a telling sign, but he’s so young. I mean, isn’t he the youngest? Wouldn’t he be the youngest player in the NBA? Yeah. So, that’s that’s kind of tough to write a guy off. Like, he’ll be two years younger starting the season than like the Thompson Twins were when they started. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think there’s a world in which you could say bust. I mean, unless it’s some like catastrophic injury or something, but it’s like his feel for the game, how good he is defensively, and like all his maturity on the court already. I think all of that I don’t think there’s like no way around like you’re getting that. I think the only thing that is a like question mark is can he like create a shot and like all that stuff at a high efficient level? And even if he like really struggled this year with it, I think there would be so much there like, dude, he’s in all the right spots. He knows what he’s doing. Like look at him defensively, too. Yeah, he he averaged 14 a game or like 12 a game or something, but still that’s going to go up. There were signs. I just Yeah, he’s just such an all-around prospect, but I don’t think there’s any world in which after year one anyone could declare him a bust. And then there’s like the Ben Sim Simmons example where he makes an allNBA team, makes a couple alldefense rookie of the year and then now he’s like fighting for a minimum minimum contract somewhere. It is there is not like Simmons sweep stakes. Are you keeping up? There’s not a cookie cutter like first like number one overall pick guy out there. We doing odds in the break for what team? For which team Ben Simmons is going to go to. Yeah. Coming up, I’ll tell you which team Ben Simmons is going to go to that will shake shake and shape the NBA. Well, that was my hot take. Ah, coming up, Isaac’s got his take about how this new CBA might actually be good in some ways. Talk about that and more coming up. [Music] Today’s episode of Locked on Apps brought to you by, speaking of odds, FanDuel. We’ve got all kinds of great things at FanDuel. And they have so many things. They don’t not have Ben Simmons. Actually, I don’t think they have Ben Simmons odds over there. It’s a real outfit. They don’t put odds for things that you can’t really uh NBA Finals MVP. They already have up SGA plus 260. Jokic plus 900. Donovan Mitchell plus a,000. Jaylen Brunson plus a,000. KD plus 1500. Uh, where do we get to our first Maverick? Anthony Davis plus 7500. He’s the same as Kyrie. Uh, above Victor Webbyama. Above Desmond Bane, below Fred Van Bleet. Same as Kyrie for MVP for finals MVP. Plus 75 plus 7500 for both of them. James Harden plus 5,500. I can’t see a world where James makes makes the NBA. But hey, go check out FanDuel. Great stuff all the time. New to FanDuel. New customers can bet just $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Open the FanDuel app today or visit FanDuel.com to get started. Please gamble responsibly. Shut it down. Let’s go home. Thanks for hanging out with us on Locked on Matts, being part of the show. Part of the raccoon squad. That’s what we call our listeners. You listening each and every day. We call you the raccoon squad. Got all kinds of great stuff for this show planned throughout the whole summer. We’re going to do a fantasy draft tomorrow, the three of us. We’re running back to threeman weave tomorrow. So, we’ll do that. But right now, we’re doing takeoff Thursday where each of us present a take. I presented mine about Cooper Flag. I think his mentality makes it impossible for him to bust. Isaac, take it away. Yeah, let me out just for a second. I’ve been working on this take for a bit and I’m feel pretty confident about it. So, I think the second apron is actually good. And I know it gets crapped on a lot. I get it. And I see like I listen to Bill Simmons. I’ve listened to him every for forever, the podfather. And he’s been dumping on us so much. A lot of the ringer guys for the past year or so. Um, and I I just think what it brings. I I do think it’s kind of funny that Bill is, you know, is hates it because, you know, forced the Boston Celtics to like break up their whole their whole thing. But I am a big guy when it comes to like parody. I do like the parody side of it. When you look at the past 7 years, uh we have had 1 2 3 4 5 6. Wow. Seven. It lines up exactly. Seven different champions over the last seven years. Now I get it. Second Apron hasn’t been installed for the the whole seven years of that. But about what half of that or three or four years ago, you look at that and you even look at the teams who lost in the finals over the last seven years. 11 fan bases got to experience their team in the finals. I love that. I think that’s awesome. Is it good for like markets and ratings and money for the league and all that stuff? Maybe not. But is it cool for fans to be able to look at different teams in especially small markets and see like the Pacers or to see Denver or to see the Bucks or Raptors and be like, “Dude, I got to see my team in the finals over the last seven years.” So, and and the thing that I don’t get is when people make the argument against the second apron, it’s like, well, this is unfair to teams that they have to break up their team over money. Well, at some point you got to make a choice. Like, what it’s unfair that you got to make choices with your roster. Like, there are ways like it is already $50 million the second apron over the like the salary cap like floor there. Like, not floor, but where they’re setting it at and it’s like you have it. You can already go over it. So, I just don’t like if you have to make a decision on how you’re going to like construct your roster. I don’t think that’s like a bad thing. Like you can choose different routes. Like you could choose a topheavy roster and have like, hey, I’m going to go with two superstar guys and then you know what? You’re going to prioritize the draft, prioritize and try to find the good value signings in the offseason. Or you could prioritize depth and say, you know what, I’m going to choose depth, but then I got to let go of that third or fourth guy on my team and say, you know, I got to trade you and you got to go somewhere else. You can still have a generational star for your fan base to attach to. A lot of times you can have two massive stars if you choose to and you choose to give up some depth and to say like, “Hey, I want Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum for their entire careers.” Well, you got to choose that. And a lot of times it comes down to that three through five guys that the team’s got to break up and let go. You got to say, “Here you go. Bye.” And I just don’t like I You still got room for like the random role players, too. The Nick Collisons of the world that the fan bases can attach to and all this stuff. I I all of that. When you look at this, I ran across this stat. 14 of the last 18 champions in the NBA paid the luxury tax. like 14 of the last 18 and then came ac came across this well it was a quote in uh in this article in Sportico and it says if you want to win an NBA championship you have to be in the upper tile of spending. You go back to 2022 the last year before the second apron hit the Warriors payroll was $346 million. $346 million. That’s three times more than the official salary cap that season. last year they won the title. Not every team has that luxury. Not every owner of small markets can can do that, nor do they want to do that. So, not the luxury tax stuff doesn’t matter to a Steve Balmer of the world or Joe Lacobs of the world in Golden State. They showed that. They don’t care about that. They’ll just pay the tax and pay $346 million. So, I just think I think it’s good. I think it’s good overall that teams have to look at it and say, you know what? Yeah, we got to make some decisions on how we’re going to build our team. The only two counters that for me is one, I don’t like that teams who draft really well and stack up draft picks are like punished. I don’t like that. I do wish there was some type of way to where their contracts it was a lesser percentage of the caps somehow to where if you lined up, you know, hey, we drafted really well, so why are we why do we have to let go of the third guy that we drafted really well and they’re hitting like an OKC or something like that? And then the other one is I think it’s hard to explain for fans. I think for the average fan, it’s just so hard to like understand all the rules and and I think you got to make things simple for fans. So, but overall I think it’s a good thing. I like the parody in the league and cool teams got to make decisions when it comes to how they’re going to build a roster. I would say of those 11 teams, I guess my question would be how many of those fan bases still feel like they have a chance to go back to the finals? Because if you isolate it, it’s like going back what, seven years? I mean, yeah. You know, like 2019 is so so long ago in NBA years, but even recently it’s like, you know, the Nuggets who who won a few years ago. Yeah. The Mavericks probably not, but that’s for other reasons. The Celtics almost certainly not. The Pacers probably, but that’s because of injuries. That’s because of injuries, of course. But even if the Celtics, like if they even if Tatum was healthy and they decided, all right, we got to trade Drew and KP, if they did all the stuff they did anyways, even with Tatum, they’re not I don’t think they’re like a real legit championship contender. And I do wonder how how much of that is just over the course of NBA history that happens where your teams just break up over time. Guys go on to different places or because I agree I like the parody and I think from just a general NBA perspective it’s probably a little bit better and for the small markets it’s a little bit better but I think the fact that it’s been seven in a row and there’s been so many finals team is a little bit crazy to me and I do think there’s some value in there being dynasties like it it’s it’s good for the league. Yeah, that was my number one thing I actually wrote down. I didn’t say is dynasty like or are dynasties good in the moment. I don’t think they are, but looking back on them, I think they always are almost positive. We’ve kind of we’ve kind of in a way shifted from like villain teams or organizations to just villain players. Yeah. Because I feel like there’s probably a lot of people like we grew up and it’s like we were coming out of the the Bulls dynasty and then since you know when we were you know kids teenagers and all that it was like all right we had a span of you know the Lakers had a span of the Spurs there and it’s like you could bunch together like four or five teams and like this is pretty much the only teams we saw win a title in these years. But they also became a lot a lot of villains too. Like I hated the Lakers, right? Like and like I hated the Lakers when they were winning those titles with Kobe and Shaq. So, I don’t know what, Nick. Sorry. I think that it has exacerbated the stars changing teams thing because it’s so hard for a team to like retool around somebody once they get some pieces set. And I think that has caused some of the some of the parody and it is hard to follow some some team. So, you don’t get you don’t get the perennial this players on this team all the time. We h you have the you have the you know the Steph Curry’s you have guys like that but and Giannis I guess but even look at what happened with with Giannis team gets too old and yeah they didn’t nail all their all their pieces but now all of a sudden you’re like all right well is our next move is our next move just to trade Giannis is that like the best thing we can do for our franchise and the fact that you have to consider that because like you had a couple of things go bad Chris Middle say is the cap making that happen though like the second apron you had you had some extenduating circumstances. You get a little old. Chris Middleton’s not as good as he was because of injuries. Uh you know, they didn’t hit on on a couple of of moves and then now all of a sudden you’re like, “Ah, now now we have to move on.” And it I think it shortens every single run that a team goes on. We just saw this with with the Celtics. Now Tatum’s injury affected that, too. But hey, the Celtics Celtics literally gotten two run. They basically got two runs and one of them ended in a Tatum injury. Yeah. And not to go back to Bill, but like every time Bill talks about it, it’s like, dude, the Celtics shouldn’t be punished for making some like solid sign some really good signings and drafting well, it’s like they drafted well twice. They drafted Tatum and Brown and then everybody else they’ve kind of brought in through different ways. It’s like, yeah, you had like five people on your team making over like $25 million or something. It’s like crazy. Who who somebody said this recently, but if you win a title, you get paid. I think it was Cruso. Cruso was on uh Dan Patrick recently and he was like everybody that’s on a title title team eventually gets paid. Like you’re you’re buying in so that eventually you get paid and it happens all the time where guys just get paid off a title team and then they move on and and you know that that happens that happened even before the second apron. Like if Nimhard was a free agent makes all the timelines shorter. Yeah. Well, it’s like if Nimhard was a free agent going into this summer coming off this coming off this Yeah. or you know turn it’s like all right well yeah at some point you can’t afford everyone so it comes down to does that guy want to if he wants to get paid like he should then all right and this is where the parody comes in then he’s going to have to Nimhard would have to call up or go to a Brooklyn for $30 million a year and you know Indiana would lose their third or fourth guy and some people are like that’s not fair but also at the same time I look at him be like well now Brooklyn’s getting better like they got a guy like that and that guy’s getting paid And I don’t know, is Brooklyn getting better? I’m saying if they got Nar. Like I I’d say and people aren’t going to like this, but it’s the truth that Thunder will be a perfect case study of this cuz if they feel like we cannot build a team under these constraints regardless like despite all of the things that we have done to prepare ourselves for it, it is still next to impossible for us to build a team. Uh that’s where I think you’ll you’ll start to have problems because it’s like they did everything. They did everything correct. They built draft picks. They’ve gotten guys on good good contracts, young guys. Will people throw a fit though if like they start like next off season, hey, we’re we’re dumping Dort. Dumping Dort. People hate the Thunder. But I’m saying, are you saying the Thunder fans would? I think I think teams would look at that and say they did everything pretty much perfect. If you’re a team, you basically only have like one to two-year window to build up to. You’re building up all everything you’re building up to. You get one basically one or two shots with your star players at their at their peak in their prime ready to go paid whatever they’re getting paid. The role players you can you can afford and then maybe some young players and hopefully you have some young players that take off because you need those cheaper contracts. That’s the thing. It’s like they did think perfect with the draft but it’s like all right well you gave Hartinstein a big contract. You traded for Caruso. like you have some of these other guys that you brought vets in. That was awesome. Great moves, but yeah, you got to make decisions where you can’t afford a harden sign for $28 million a year or whatever it is. So, I I just don’t think that’s bad. And I feel like overall the second apron majority opinion about it is, hey, this is restricted. It’s not fair. It’s a hard cap. This is dumb, stupid. We hate it. And I’m kind of like, I kind of like it. I’d much rather have this than baseball. Yeah, you have to have you have to have a cap. You have to have something resembling a hard cap in basketball or else it wouldn’t even be worth watching the sport. It it’d look like European soccer. Like that’s just the European football. It would everyone would be in LA or Miami. Like it wouldn’t just be a waste of everyone’s time. Coming up. Slightly has a take. None of us know what it is. Could be anything. I don’t even know what it is yet. Stay tuned for Slightly to say literally anything in six seconds coming up. [Music] I have to apologize that you felt that he should have played more. [Music] Thanks for hanging out with us. Lockdown Mavs. We’ll be here all week talking about your Mavs. Isaac just did a take that the second in an is actually good. I talked about Cooper flag. His mentality makes it impossible for him to be a bust and now slightly biased takes the floor. So my take I just think with uh how rapidly Dallas is growing that there needs to be added uh investment into public transport. I’m kidding. My He’s going to the trains. He’s doing his trains right now. I thought he was saying his second franchise. I’m like, “Oh my god.” Yeah. Yeah. Let’s do it. No. The Cowboys need another team in Dallas that could support both. Honestly. Yeah. Put one in Plano. But u back in Irving back Yeah. Yeah. I heard they’re going to build a stadium there soon. That’s true. Maybe a casino. Well, my take is wanting the Mavericks to rebuild and be do poorly this season so they can get a high draft pick to me is an absolutely idiotic stance to have and I’m ready to stand on it and defend it. I think it’s so stupid. I think you’ve already you’ve already accomplished what every rebuilding team wants to do accidentally. Like you got your young franchise cornerstone. That’s number one. You don’t see the vision. Yeah. That they don’t see the vision. They don’t see the vision. Fortune favors the bold. wasn’t accidental. Okay, that’s fair. That’s fair. But I’m saying the the Wizards, the Jazz, these teams that have had horrible by the Hornets, these teams that have not gotten that pick, not they’ve tanked for years in hopes of getting something like this, you got it. And I just don’t this idea of just blowing it up and rebuilding. And maybe down the line you trade Anthony Davis, maybe down the line you trade PJ, Kyrie, whatever the case may be. But just doing it this year just for the the hopes and dreams that you can get lucky in the lottery again next season cuz what happens if you’re just like, “Yeah, let’s just be bad next year.” And then you get the ninth overall pick and it’s supposed to be a loaded draft class, but even in like historically loaded draft classes, guys in the top 10 don’t pan out or aren’t that good. Then you go five years without control of your pick. Then what? Like what is your plan from then on out? That’s the part that I don’t understand in all of this. And then when I see people who are just like, “This team should be bad. I’m rooting for this team to do that. Like there was a poll that was going around that was would you rather the Mavs make it to the conference finals and lose? I guess make it to conference finals or miss the playoffs and Nico Harrison gets fired. And that was the that was the that was the result that got the most. And it’s because it’s because Nico gets fired. I get I get it’s Nico’s name in it. But I thought to myself, why on earth would you want that if you’re still rooting for the team presumably? Because everything that goes into the Mavs making the conference finals is that means Cooper Flag’s incredible immediately. That means AD’s healthy and is good and is awesome. That means Kyrie comes back and is awesome. Those things set you up way better in the future than missing the playoffs entirely, which would mean AD’s probably hurt. Kyrie doesn’t come back at all or comes back and isn’t very good. Flag maybe underwhelms a tiny bit. Like all of those things go into that. So, I just I don’t understand wanting that because that makes no sense to me. You’re set up better for the future if this team tries to win right now because it’s better for Flag. It would, if you’re a pro trade ad guy, it would boost his trade value. Like, whatever the case may be. So, I just think this idea of them like blowing it up. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all. I I don’t I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the positives of it. I did I did a show on this that I said that I think that was that was their best path forward because the conversation we just had about the Second Apron. Your window is so short that you go for basically they’re basically going for it right now. Right. Wait, wait. You you think they should blow it up right now? I think that would be the best I think that would be the best move for this team franchise-wise, they’re not going to do it. And if they they’re keeping Anthony and Kyrie and so I’m like, “All right, well, if they’re going to do that, then there’s no reason to then what are you you’re not blowing up anything.” But to keep to get something to sustainable with Cooper Flag because if you don’t do that, think about think about the next couple of years. You have Anthony Davis and Kyrie for like the next two to three years that are still going to be viable. And then at the at the end of like probably at the end of like two years from now, I don’t think their trade value is going to be that great. Definitely three years from now slightly. And so then so then you’re like, “All right, now we have these these aging stars. Do we pay do we pay them some more? Do we bring them back? Do we try and move on?” And you didn’t get assets for them. You you don’t have control of your picks like you said. And so then how are you recouping those assets and getting another young player, a chat, a Jaylen Williams, you know, a Case Wallace, like how are you getting those type of players to build something sustainable around Cooper Flag? And so that was that was my take with it is that in order to build some like something four or five years from now, these next couple of years, Nate, you need to be able to build some assets in order to to start going when Cooper Flag is ready to win now. Like at a high level, the only thing that just is an immediate non-starter for me is the fact that following this year, and we’ve seen it, like we just saw it play out, the the way that the new lottery rules are, you could lose 60 plus games and get the fifth overall pick. like it happens. So, let’s just say I don’t think there’s any scenario Well, knock on wood where this team is like a bottom four team. Like, I just don’t think there’s a scenario where that ever happens. I would blame anything about this maps team at any point in time. I’m with you. I’m with you. You look at the Nets J. It’s just like I don’t know how that would even have to h like the scenarios would have to be insane. I think it’s less about tanking and more about getting assets for guys that are good right now. Kyrie, you think Anthony Davis after the retina is getting all like the best value? He sees the vision now. He got it fixed. I don’t think I’m going to be I’m going to be brutally honest. I don’t think Kyrie’s fetching huge returns. I just don’t I just think especially off the ACL. So, you think we’re past that that that scenario like we’re we’re already past the point of no return on getting good stuff for those two guys? Well, AD probably, but then you’d have to factor in it’s like, okay, what team’s trading for AD and what am I what picks am I getting for AD? Am I is this No, like the Hornets aren’t like, yeah, let’s let’s do it. Let’s just get AD. The Nets aren’t going to be like, let’s get AD and we’ll trade you all of our picks. It’ll be a team like the Rockets. It’ be a team like the Spurs who would be presumably really good for the next three or so years, right? So, you’re getting and and I get just the having the dart throw and stuff like that, but I just for me personally, I’d rather have Flag get the experience of playing alongside AD and being on a competitive team immediately in a team that might make the playoffs versus just cuz I in my opinion, if you do that, you’re banking on this next draft pick being good. That would be the big bank cuz otherwise you’re just you’re hoping for other teams being bad cuz you don’t even have control of your own picks. Yeah, I’m I’m with you on the playoff experience. That is that is a real big thing that I think is a positive for the direction they’re going right now. I think the moment you made the Luca trade, it doesn’t matter. Like you got to win. Like I I don’t think you being Mo or you being like the Mavericks ever everything. Like I think the fan base is in is has been in a fragile spot the past 6 months and to say hey we’re just going to flat out rebuild. I get that Cooper Flag has brought a renewed excitement to a lot of the fans 100% and it should. But also like to look at everything like hey now we’re now we’re just going to dump the guy that we traded for Luca and I don’t know and after everything is said like one it’s just not going to happen because as long as Nico’s there it just will never happen. if they let go of Nico this off seasonason or like you know a month ago or something I think everything’s on the table then but like they’ve committed to like we’re going to win now and honestly as long as everybody’s in place and there’s a lot of win now guys on this team that even if you’re like hey well yeah I think we should just try to be bad I mean you really just going to sit here and dump everybody AD Clay like just go down the roster and it’s just like all right it’s only Cooper Lively and so I think you go for it I think you’ve committed to Kyrie. You’ve already given him the contract and everything too. So I I just I don’t think there’s any world I think my question that I think we even debated a while back, but my question I would throw maybe at the slightly is at what point in the season and where would they have to be in the standings would you be like, “All right, let’s close up shop at this point.” Like if it’s, you know, we’re we’re looking at like March and we’re past the trade deadline and they’re at like ninth or 10th and they come out and say, “Hey, Kyrie’s not going to come back. He’s shooting for like the playin or first round, but it’s not even 100%.” And AD’s had a couple injuries throughout the year, but he’s he’s playing in March. They’re they’re good to go and they’re in the ninth or tth spot. I feel like there’s going to be a debate between the fans at that point of shut it down, let’s go home or fight for it. It was last year and that was that was like I was getting into Twitter arguments over this. That was one of the things I was saying if the polls said make the play in tournament or whatever or miss the playoffs in that’s a different conversation where it’s like yeah how much is like getting just completely and totally stomped against OKC in round one versus missing the playoffs and the lottery and all of that stuff. I I guess it have to depend to me, but you know, so for me, like last year was like, shut it down. Let’s not make the playoffs because you get the chance of getting in the lottery and getting up and getting a guy. Then you got the guy and now that guy is the center the centerpiece of your franchise moving forward. So for me, his development matters more than they think cuz look, I you had a 1.8% chance. That’s not happening again. Okay. You just you just cannot bank on that happening again. Deals with the devil only happen once in your Yeah. I mean, it would be a miracle if it happened again. So, I think I think the other thing going into favor of of your argument is that Flag and Lively specifically, there’s nothing holding them back from development. They’re going to get time. If if there were some guys like there’s some older guys holding them back from getting minutes and development, then I think it would be a better conversation because then you’re like wasting their time almost because you’re not developing those guys to in order to take over the next era of M’s basketball. Those guys are already going to play because they’re already that good. So, yeah, I think I think I think you got some points for sure. I just think not having control of your picks for five years takes that off the table entirely for me. I just I don’t you don’t see any team doing it. Like you look around and like the Kings were hanging on for dear the Suns. Even the Bucks I think a big reason I honestly think if the Bucks had access to their picks, I think Giannis is probably on a new team. Yeah. Like that’s that’s a lot to say. But if you’re the Bucks, it’s like we trade Giannis and then what? We’re terrible for 5 years and we don’t even have our picks. Like what what what am I telling my fan base there? So that’s just for me. For for me it’s they’re they’re already too far down the line. Yeah. I think you’ve committed in multiple ways already to win now that I think it’d just be really hard to reverse course. So I think you’ve already committed to it for the next couple years and stay the course. Coming up tomorrow, we’re going to draft the Texas teams. We’re draft the best players from out of the three teams in Texas. Who is the best team in Texas? What are the best players in Texas? We’re going to talk all about that tomorrow. It should be fun with the three of us running it back. Guys, thanks so much for listening to Locked on Mavs. Peace out. Lightning strikes twice.

The Dallas Mavericks are gearing up for the upcoming NBA season with Cooper Flagg as their potential game-changer. Can Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving lead the Mavs to success, or should the team consider a rebuild?

Nick Angstadt, Isaac Harris, and Slightly Biased discuss Cooper Flagg’s potential impact on the Mavs, the pros and cons of the NBA’s second apron rule, and whether Dallas should pursue a win-now strategy or focus on rebuilding. The hosts debate the merits of keeping Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving versus trading them for future assets, while also touching on other NBA teams like the Boston Celtics, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Milwaukee Bucks.

0:00 Cooper Flagg’s Mentality & NBA Busts
12:28 Is the Second Apron Actually Good?
24:42 Rebuilding vs. Winning Now for Mavs

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