ESPN released the latest bunch in its yearly effort to rank the top 100 NBA players. Kyrie Irving and Cooper Flagg both made the top 50, and, in quite a shocking revelation, Flagg is 16 (!) spots higher than the veteran guard. Irving comes in at 39, just ahead of former Maverick Anthony Davis and right behind San Antonio guard Stephon Castle. Flagg ranks ahead of NBA champion Chet Holmgren and just shy of Hawks forward Jalen Johnson. Assuming no other Mavericks will crack the top 10, Cooper Flagg is,
convincingly, the best Mavericks player, according to ESPN.
The last time we saw Kyrie Irving play basketball was over a year and a half ago. Training camp murmurs have been overwhelmingly positive, and if you tend to believe the people who are around him every day, it sounds like he won’t skip a beat when he returns. He was producing 25 points and five assists nightly when he got injured, which would be more than incredible if he were to recreate that this season. Irving ranked 25th two seasons ago, coming off a trip to the NBA Finals, so only dropping 14 spots after extended time off and a major knee surgery is indicative of the sentiment that he won’t see a harsh decline in ability.
Flagg’s position on this list is a bit shocking, but only because of how the narrative around him shook out at the end of last year. Ultimately, Flagg took home the Rookie of the Year award. But for a few months there were plenty of pundits who campaigned for Kon Knueppel. Knueppel, without playing basketball since losing the award by just 12 votes, is a whopping 25 slots behind Flagg on this list. This shows that despite the talk online, a lot of people feel the way Mavericks fans do, having watched all of his games: that he is a top 25 player in the NBA. In fact, by the end of this season, this may even be too low for him.
All signs point to the two Mavericks standouts justifying their ranks. And if things go well, they may push it even higher on the list next year.
