Mavericks No. 1 pick F Cooper Flag brought a “sorely needed business boost” to the Mavericks franchise still “reeling from one of the most controversial trades in league history,” according to Lovinger & Fine of BLOOMBERG NEWS. Mavericks CEO Rick Welts said, “Almost 2,000 fans bought $125 Flagg jerseys from pop-up jersey printers in the arena and online.” Welts said the team has “now more than made up for the lost sponsors” and renewed “between 75% and 80% of season tickets, in large part thanks to Flagg.” He said the Mavericks “sold about” $8M in new season tickets in the three days after the draft lottery, confirming a Front Office Sports report. The Dallas women’s team, the Wings, also had the No. 1 pick in this year’s WNBA draft and used it to add G Paige Bueckers. On Friday, the same day of Flagg’s introductory press conference in Dallas, Bueckers and the Wings will take on Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever in “a sold-out American Airlines Center, which seats about 20,000.” The arrival of the young Dallas stars “offers their respective franchises potential inroads with corporate sponsors as the teams plan their futures in Dallas real estate.” Welts said, “Sponsors are looking longer term at what’s going to happen in the Dallas market” (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 6/26).
HIGH PRESSURE: In Dallas, Mike Piellucci wrote, “It’s not terribly fair, is it, to ask an 18-year-old to launder the reputation of our most distressed pro sports team?” That is what Flagg, now officially the top overall pick of the 2025 NBA Draft, “must do for the Dallas Mavericks.” Flagg cannot “fix all of this on his own, because no player could.” But he is “better equipped than most to try, and so he’ll inevitably be expected to.” Piellucci noted you will not “first think of public relations disasters or internal upheaval” once Flagg starts “running good.” He will “hoist a shaky organization onto steadier ground.” The sooner the Mavericks “take on Flagg’s identity, the better things get.” Piellucci added, the Mavericks “desperately need a reboot, and Flagg is it” (D MAGAZINE, 6/26). GM Nico Harrison said that the team “won’t rush or slow the process of Flagg becoming the face of the franchise.” He said, “Eventually it’s going to be Cooper’s team.” Harrison added, “We don’t know when that transition will happen” (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 6/26).
AMERICAN BORN: In D.C., Jerry Brewer wrote basketball globalization has “helped make the sport more lucrative.” Nevertheless, this nation’s “roundball ego won’t allow the game to diversify without concern that our players are losing their edge.” It is never “simply amazing that the game has grown across so many borders” that Thunder G Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nuggets C Nikola Jokic and Bucks F Giannis Antetokounmpo have “driven the bus for three of the past five champions.” The discourse “always includes criticism” that America does not have “sufficient representation among the best of the best.” Flagg, now in the NBA, development will mean “much to the perception of American pro ballers.” It is an “unfair burden,” but there is “hope that he can offset the dearth of 25-and-under American players capable of dominating the league.” The U.S. could “use some of Flagg’s fearlessness” and America needs to “replenish its talent at the highest tier of NBA stardom” (WASHINGTON POST, 6/26).
