Mavericks slammed for risky free agency move that may drag down Cooper Flagg

After Kyrie Irving allotted the Dallas Mavericks the ability to exercise their Taxpayer's MLE on D'Angelo Russell, Dallas completed their goal of finding a stopgap guard this summer, but some fans and analysts are still discontent that Dallas didn't opt to find a better guard for their roster via trade instead.

Russell is a polarizing player due to him having one of the most inefficient seasons in his career last season offensively as well as the fact that he's never really been a plus-defender in his NBA career, but Yahoo Sports writer Ben Rohrbach recently knocked Russell's bad habits and thinks they will culminate to the point that it rubs off on Cooper Flagg, which is a preemptive stretch to say the least.

Russell obviously has some occasional bad habits in terms of getting lackadaisical on the defensive end, but it should be noted he turned down more lucrative offers to come to Dallas, as he clearly sees the vision of this being a competitive team that will be vying for a title next season.

Critic says D'Angelo Russell's bad habits will rub off on Cooper Flagg

It can't be negated Russell isn't the most dialed-in player in the league on both ends, but he's coming to a more competitive situation, which could certainly help his buy-in on the defensive end, but to say his bad habits would trickle onto Flagg is a severe overstretch, as one of Flagg's best tendencies is his other-worldly competitive nature and he'll be surrounded by veterans in Dallas that will be seeking his best interest.

Rohrbach made these claims in an article that was about the early winners and losers of free agency, and he went as far as to dub the Mavericks as a "shrugging thumbs down" for their free agency thus far. When strictly grading the Mavericks from a free agency perspective, Russell is probably the best point guard they could have found in the market with the TPMLE, and Dallas also managed to re-sign coveted 3-and-D guard Dante Exum this past Wednesday, so Rohrbach is clearly holding some resentment over Nico Harrison for trading Luka Doncic.

It's without a doubt that Dallas trading Doncic could go down as the worst trade of the century in the NBA, but to criticize Harrison's offseason performance just because of one abysmal trade isn't an objective take, as Harrison and Dallas' upper brass didn't do too terrible this offseason. Obviously, Flagg was gifted to the Mavericks and they shouldn't be accredited at large for making the simple decision of taking the best player in the draft, but they still addressed both of their offseason needs by acquiring playmaking/shot creation from Russell and getting back Exum's point-of-attack defense.

Nonetheless, unless Russell is an absolute locker room cancer in Dallas, Flagg is extremely unlikely of a candidate to be influenced by any sort of bad habits Russell could bring to Dallas, and Russell would likely get called out by some of Dallas' veterans if he were projecting any bad habits on the younger players of the roster. This isn't the Brooklyn Nets or one of Russell's previous teams he's played on in his career that didn't have hefty expectations, as Dallas is expected to win next year and Russell's former teammate in Anthony Davis likely played a part in his recruitment to Dallas, so while Russell may have not been the best stopgap guard Dallas could've acquired in the totality of the offseason, he's an extremely good free agent pick-up and there's almost no way he derails Flagg's development.