Transiting from college to the NBA doesn’t always go as planned. For Dallas Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg, that’s a storyline he can relate well to. At Duke last season, he lost four games and arrived in Dallas as the No. 1 pick on a franchise that believed it was still competing, just to be on the side of 52 league defeats, with six games left in the regular season.

Flagg, on Wednesday, on the Pat McAfee Show, gave one of the most candid assessments of a rookie year that any No. 1 pick has offered in recent memory. He was asked about the difficulty of the transition from his near-perfect college record to the NBA, and he didn’t dress it up: “Obviously, it’s been tough like you said. Through high school, college, I mean, I only lost four games last year, so there’s been times of the season where it’s been really mentally taxing on me. Just not having the success that I would have hoped for. And obviously, we’ve had a lot of injuries and a lot of unfortunate things happen throughout the year, but it’s obviously not been ideal. And I mean, I’ve had growth along the way, and I’ve had to get better and learn on the fly. Definitely not the start I would have looked for, but I think hopefully eventually I’ll be able to look back on it and know that I was able to learn a lot from it.”

There were huge hopes in Dallas this season after last season’s debacle. The Mavs entered the 2025-26 season with Anthony Davis anchoring the frontcourt, Kyrie Irving expected back from his ACL tear, and Flagg stepping into a supporting role on a team that believed it could compete. Davis played just 20 games and then suffered ligament damage in his hand.

He was eventually traded to Washington. Irving, on the other hand, is sitting out the entire season. This left a young Flagg to hold the entire operation. On the Pat McAfee Show, he described exactly how that felt: “Coming in, I wasn’t expecting to be thrown in the fire as much. Obviously, I was looking at AD, Kai, and Klay. With so many injuries and stuff, it just didn’t work out that way, and I was thrown out there with a little bit more than I would’ve expected and had a little more responsibility, but overall it’s helped me develop.”

He currently leads the Mavericks in points, rebounds, assists, and steals. That is not a role-player stat sheet. That is a franchise cornerstone doing it all, and at 19, on a team that was supposed to be built around veterans, who, due to no fault of theirs, were barely there.

Cooper Flagg is averaging 20.3 points, 6.6 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 1.2 steals, while shooting 46.7% from the field. These are numbers that place him in the company of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Luka Doncic, and Carmelo Anthony as the only teenagers in NBA history to average 20 or more points per game.

Away from the court, Flagg opened up in the same Pat McAfee appearance about the isolation of being 19 in the NBA. He traded the Duke dorms for a quiet life alone in Dallas and had to learn to pay rent, while navigating a locker room full of veterans with families he can’t yet relate to.

Irving, who has mentored Flagg throughout his recovery, helped steady him during the worst of it. “He stepped in as a great vet for me and was giving me guidance, because there were times where I was shaken up,” Flagg said.

Cooper Flagg Credits Jason Kidd’s Confidence as Key to His Development Amid Mavericks’ Chaos

During the early months of his NBA career, Coach Jason Kidd experimented with Flagg. He decided to play him as a full-time point guard, a position he had never operated in his life. Flagg told ESPN’s Malika Andrews he had “never been in a situation like that,” and the early results on the scoreboard reflected the adjustment.

However, Kidd never blinked, and Flagg learnt a thing or two from the adjustment, saying: “Coach Kidd has given me that confidence to go out and be a creator and learn the game in a lot of different ways. I think it’s just helped me to get comfortable all around.” Since the All-Star break, Flagg has averaged 6.5 assists per game, clear evidence that the point guard experiment has advanced far beyond mere survival. Kidd has since named Flagg the “clear-cut” Rookie of the Year, competing against his former Duke teammate and Charlotte Hornets rookie Kon Knueppel.

Flagg, during his time in Dallas, has endured a great deal. From the GM firing, the Davis trade, Irving’s absence, to front office instability and organizational changes in his first 70 games. That level of turbulence is what most players would not face in five seasons.

The Mavericks’ dysfunction this season may have compressed a decade of growth into one year. From reading defenses off pick-and-rolls, to managing a locker room that kept losing veterans, to bearing the emotional weight of a franchise and a city while the adults around him sorted things out. Flagg has experienced all of this before entering his second year.

With rumors of Bob Myers being linked as GM, Dallas fans are feeling hopeful. The rough start Flagg described on Wednesday will not define what comes next. If anything, it is the foundation.