Jason Kidd admits harsh Cooper Flagg truth the Mavericks can't escape

35 games into his first season in the NBA, Dallas Mavericks star Cooper Flagg is hitting the infamous rookie wall.

This is normal for rookies, as many of them are playing professional basketball for the first time in their lives, and the physical and mental demands of the NBA are much different from anything that they've ever been through.

These types of mid-season slumps can last a few games, or even a few weeks, and Jason Kidd didn't deny that Flagg is running into these midseason struggles when asked about it last week.

Kidd talked about Flagg and the rookie wall on Saturday evening before Dallas took on the Houston Rockets, and it sounds like even Kidd is accepting the fact that Flagg has reached this plateau that most young players hit at some point near the beginning of their career.

Jason Kidd knows Cooper Flagg has hit the rookie wall

"He’s gotta touch it," Kidd said about Flagg and him embracing the rookie wall. "He’s gotta rub it and hold it. He’s gotta embrace it. That’s just a mental thing. For the great ones, they touch it, they don’t run from it. They find a way to go over it or through it or around it, because it’s not gonna move."

Kidd wants Flagg to embrace the mental challenges of being a rookie in the NBA, and it sounds like he believes that this adversity will make him better. Kidd related Flagg going through these rookie struggles now to what he encountered while playing point guard at the beginning of the season.

It wasn't leading to wins, but it prepared Flagg for the long run.

While Kidd quickly learned that Flagg isn't built to be a starting point guard at this point in his career, it helped morph him into the player that he is today. It helped him become much more comfortable with the ball in his hands, and it sounds like he believes the rookie wall is going to do the same thing.

While Flagg is still playing at a high level, his last three games have been rough compared to how he's played for the rest of the season. Through these three games, he is averaging 12.3 points and 3.0 turnovers per game while shooting 29.8 percent from the field and 10 percent from downtown, and the long NBA season is clearly catching up to him.

His rookie wall has nothing to do with him playing poorly, as his passing and defense have still been elite. It's more of him getting tired and learning what it takes to thrive in the NBA.

Flagg's 35 games for the Mavericks this season are just two games shy of the 37 games he played while at Duke, and the season isn't even halfway over yet. His legs are clearly gassed, as shown by many of his shots falling short recently, and he is barely getting time to rest.

Flagg has played 1212 minutes this season, which ranks eighth in the NBA. The next closest rookie is Kon Knueppel of the Charlotte Hornets at 1126 minutes, and every other rookie outside of VJ Edgecombe of the Philadelphia 76ers has played less than 1,000 minutes.

Kidd knows that what Flagg is doing as a 19-year-old isn't easy, but he wants him to tackle being tired head-on and embrace every challenge that comes his way. Most of what he is going through right now is mental and physical fatigue, and Mavericks fans have nothing to worry about despite his decreased production.

He's learning how to affect the game when his offense isn't as dominant as usual, and this is just another bump in the road that will help him become one of the best players in the NBA.