Cooper Flagg recently sat down with Tommy Alter of The Young Man and the Three podcast in his first podcast appearance ever, which he made sure to let everyone know before they started taping. In the episode aptly named THE MAVS EPISODE, Flagg was joined by teammates Ryan Nembhard and Max Christie, and they hit a whole host of topics.
Some highlights include Christie’s trade to Dallas, everybody’s draft experience and what Max Christie has learned from Klay Thompson. We’ll get back to that last one.
It’s not a secret that Cooper Flagg has struggled with losing as much as the Dallas Mavericks have this year. He has simply not been used to it. But there is an argument to be made about how learning to lose will help you win later in your career and help you deal with adversity better.
Flagg talked about that at length, and touched on how he’s improved at managing the mental side as the season wore on.
“You have to learn how to lose, I think. And learn how to take positives away and know that you might have another one [game] tomorrow or the next day.”
The Dallas Mavericks are in a rebuild phase around Cooper Flagg, and have more than twice as many losses than wins currently at 55-25.
Coming off a successful season at Duke and drafted with the number one pick, Cooper Flagg is not accustomed to losing at all.
“We lost four games last year in college and each time we had four or five days in between to go through all the film. You start working on drills from the game, different things that you have to work on,” Flagg said.
It didn’t make it easier that the pressure was high from back home, especially to start the season:
“The family is freaking out. Like my mom especially. She hadn’t seen me lose that much before so she’s worried about me. And you’re trying to just move on each night.”
“It was tough. There were times early in the season where it was taking a toll on me mentally,” Cooper Flagg said, also emphasizing how much this season has taught him:
“That was a big learning curve for me. Learning how to lose and how to bounce back a little bit quicker and get over it quicker than previously.”
But Flagg is not the only one who learned a lot this season in Dallas. Max Christie, the young shooting guard brought to Dallas with Anthony Davis in the Luka Trade last February, had a lot to say about what a young shooter can learn from one of the best shooters the league has ever seen.
When asked what he has learned from Klay Thompson, he went straight to talking about Thompson’s personality and how he carries himself:
“Outside of basketball and shooting, it’s been a joy to watch him and his personality. The confidence that he has. He doesn’t care what anybody else thinks about him,” Max Christie said about Klay Thompson. It’s that very useful and extreme shooter’s confidence, which is necessary if you want to be the best. Something once-Maverick Tim Hardaway Jr. was good at, as well. A shooter without confidence is at best mediocre.
And Max Christie seems inspired by that approach. “It’s honestly something I think that I can use more of. Continuing to have that ultimate confidence,” he said.
When it comes to basketball and shooting, it’s all about speed.
“What I try to take is his speed and his quickness of his release, and how compact his shot is – but how quick he gets into it. And that’s an adjustment for me. This is the best shooting year I’ve had in my career so far and I’m adjusting to how guys are closing out hard. I have a bad habit of sometimes passing up shots because my shot isn’t as quick as I want it to be right now,” he said.
Max Christie is shooting a very efficient 40 percent from three on 5.8 attempts per game this season, and averages 12.2 points per game, the most of his four-year NBA career.
