Don’t Stop Believin’...the Sequel
How a season from hell turned into an unthinkable hope
Some'll win, some will lose
Some are born to sing the blues
Whoa, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
Just a month ago, at the end of a wild roller coaster of a season, and a day before Luka Dončić’s highly anticipated and emotional return to Dallas, I wrote about a lost dream. More specifically, how Mavs fans were robbed of that dream. Because one man stopped believin’.
That game, that night, was the pinnacle of emotions—depressed, drained, and serving as one last nostalgic hit of the old times many had failed to accept were gone. What we were left with at the time was a season of hell, plagued by the trade, countless devastating injuries, and repeated showcases of organizational incompetence.
33 days and some incredibly lucky bounces of 14 ping pong balls later, the dream is back!
This is sports. This is the NBA. You literally can’t make this up. A roller coaster of emotions—ranging from anger, denial, and depression, back to limitless optimism. Bringing back the hope that the Luka trade had taken from Mavericks fans. The emotions that Nico Harrison and Dumont failed to understand.
One more chance at franchise-defining talent
Some will call it a conspiracy, a bigger part of the unfinished Dončić deal. Some will say it was the basketball gods smiling on a hurting fanbase that had never caught a lottery break in the past. Others will see it as an incredible twist, an undeserved kiss of luck for Harrison.
However you look at it, it doesn’t change the fact that the Mavericks are now in position to draft another potential franchise-changing talent.
Cooper Flagg is what most draft experts describe (and I plan to do more content and structured analysis on him before the draft) as the best domestic prospect to come out of the U.S. since Zion Williamson and Anthony Davis.
ESPN college basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla describes him as an automatic future 20-10 player, a high-IQ passer, and a winner. Some have suggested Kawhi Leonard, Jayson Tatum, Scottie Pippen, Andrei Kirilenko, and Lamar Odom as potential NBA comparisons.
Those are great names, NBA superstars, and an incredibly high bar to reach. Even for a national college player of the year, consensus first-team All-American, NABC Freshman of the Year, and national high school player of the year. There’s no doubt that Flagg is the epitome of an athletic, fast, aggressive, and high-IQ player to build around in the new NBA era of speed, athleticism, and aggressiveness that I highlighted just a couple of days ago.
How—and how fast—Flagg develops should and will become the main storyline for the Mavericks from this point forward (assuming Harrison doesn’t do anything crazy again). How the Mavericks build around a talent as fascinating as Flagg on a rookie contract (which, as my friend Marc Stein reported, Sixers General Manager Daryl Morey described as perhaps the most valuable singular asset in the entire league) over the next few years will be the next exciting storyline we’ll be trying to figure out in the days and months ahead.
What position does Flagg play? Do Harrison and Jason Kidd see him as the pillar of the new era from the start, or will they try to fit him into the vision of an era with Anthony Davis at power forward—the one they tried to launch back in February? Do they see him as a fit alongside the veteran core, or will the win-now, short-term focused Harrison finally take a long-term approach? Will they try to replicate the Warriors’ dual-timeline strategy, with Kyrie Irving, Davis, and Thompson on one side, and the young wave of Flagg and Dereck Lively II on the other? Or will we see another big swing this summer, using some of the now redundant pieces to bring in another star such as Giannis Antetokounmpo or Kevin Durant?
These are the kinds of problems every franchise and fanbase dreams of having. Especially a fanbase that was so apathetic and deflated just 24 hours ago. We’ll talk about and analyze all of those questions in the coming days and throughout the summer.
But today, regardless of how you feel about the Dončić trade, Harrison, the owners, and the get-out-of-jail-free card they’ve just been handed, it should be about the new ray of hope this fanbase deserved. The first step in restoring the hope and joy that basketball brings.
It’s also another chapter in the craziest trade that will link two franchises forever, and what has become the biggest U.S. sports movie-like story of the year.
A movie that never ends. It goes on and on and on and on...
One that I’ll keep chronicling here on digginbasketball, with your help.
This is insane. I think it’s proof that we live in a simulation, and the coders are basically just leaving Easter Eggs for themselves. 🤣
Dumont has now said they will keep the pick and will draft Flagg. What an unbelievable sequence of events. He is so good and so young that it does lead to your question of how will they handle this gift. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on their options. I saw one writer from the Athletic say he was the best US born draft pick since AD and Zion.
I am really curious about how this changes the strategy of the new ownership and how much weight this adds to Cuban's voice in the upcoming future. I read that he and Dumont were on the phone together celebrating their luck.
Should be a really interesting summer for sure!