The Mavericks just went through one of the strangest offseasons in the NBA. Dallas changed leadership, hired Dusty May, added several useful young players and role players, but never made the massive roster-altering move some expected. After months of debating what Masai Ujiri is building, whether the Mavericks have enough guards and which veterans could eventually be traded, it feels like the most important part of their entire outlook has gotten lost.
Cooper Flagg might be about to take a ridiculous
leap.
It is easy to forget just how absurd his rookie season actually was. Flagg averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.2 steals while starting 70 games and winning Rookie of the Year. Those numbers alone put him alongside some ridiculous company. LeBron James averaged 20.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists as a rookie. Kevin Durant averaged 20.3 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists. Luka Dončić averaged 21.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6.0 assists.
Flagg did all of that while entering the season as the youngest player in the NBA.
And the counting stats almost undersell how crazy his season became. Flagg scored 51 points against Orlando, becoming the first teenager ever to score 50 in an NBA game. He finished his rookie season with the three highest-scoring games ever by a teenager at 51, 49 and 45 points and became the first teenager in league history with four 40-point games. He also became the youngest player ever to record three straight 30-point games and finished with back-to-back 51- and 45-point performances that tied Wilt Chamberlain for the fifth-most points over a two-game span by a rookie.
That isn’t just a great rookie season. That is historically great production from a player who was younger than almost everyone he played against.
And now he gets an NBA offseason.
That is the part I think people are underestimating.
Young superstars rarely develop linearly. Luka jumped from 21.2 points per game as a rookie to 28.8 in Year 2. LeBron went from 20.9 to 27.2. Durant jumped from 20.3 to 25.3. Those players entered their second seasons having already proven they belonged, then used another summer of physical development, NBA-level training and experience to take enormous steps forward.
Flagg is starting from essentially the same place.
Nobody should automatically pencil him in for 28 points per game or pretend improvement is guaranteed. But given what he was already doing at 18 and 19, a significant jump should probably be the expectation rather than some optimistic scenario.
That is why Dallas’ quiet offseason feels so strange.
We have spent months wondering if the Mavericks understand how urgently they need to reshape this roster around Flagg. Meanwhile, there is a very real chance Flagg himself speeds up their timeline.
He might not need three or four years before Dallas should worry about winning.
He might be ready to start doing it now.
