Jason Kidd reveals Mavericks' secret recipe to avoid Cooper Flagg disaster

It hasn't even been a week since the Dallas Mavericks got a franchise-saving draw in the NBA Draft Lottery by getting the No. 1 overall pick, yet the excitement from Mavericks fans in regard to having the ability to see consensus No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg in a Mavericks uniform is already unparalleled compared to any other draft prospect in team history.

This comes just months after Dallas traded their former franchise superstar in Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, and it's clear winning the No. 1 pick and being able to draft Flagg would be the only way the organization had any feasible pathway to halfway being able to redeem themselves for the Doncic mistake, even if the Mavericks only had a 1.8 percent chance at winning the pick.

While some fans will never rejoin the fanbase following GM Nico Harrison's Doncic trade, the Mavericks have regained traction as an organization, and the prospect of drafting Flagg has already brought back a large portion of the fanbase. As excited as fans are, everyone must remember that Flagg is only a rookie, and while expectations for a No. 1 overall pick have only been higher maybe a handful of times in NBA history, he could still experience some growing pains in his first year in the league.

Mavericks' veterans put Cooper Flagg in a perfect position to succeed

This isn't to say Flagg won't be great or pan out to be a superstar one day, but the Mavericks are a team on the brink of contention, and Flagg will have pressure on him to contribute to winning at a high level right off the bat.

However, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd doesn't think this will be the case necessarily, as he thinks Flagg will be coming into an optimal situation in Dallas and there will ultimately be less pressure on him compared to if he were drafted to a team with less expectations because of the veterans on this squad.

"I think this is a great situation for him," Kidd said on the Dan Patrick Show on Thursday. "I think when you talk about the different guys that we have already on the team, the pressure of living up to number one will be a lot easier with the talent around him. When you talk about the other clubs, he would have to produce right away at a high, high level. And so I think this is a great situation for him to grow his game where the pressure isn’t as high, but we are playing for a championship, and so it would be a lot of fun."

Kidd's line of thinking makes sense in this instance, as a player of Flagg's caliber, as well as one who has his mentality, is not a normal archetype for a rookie coming into the league. Flagg is in rare air when it comes to the potential two-way impact he can make for the Mavericks from day one, and besides having an incredibly high ceiling, he also has an incredibly high floor compared to most No. 1 overall prospects in league history.

With this being said, Flagg isn't the type of player to become a terrible bust or feel the pressure of the moment too much as a rookie, and Kidd's right in the sense that there would be more exterior pressure on him if he went to a losing situation, as he'd immediately become the primary option on many teams in the back-half of the league.

Flagg is accustomed to winning from his time in high school at Maine, to his time at Montverde Academy, as well as his time at Duke University. He'll be able to step in with Dallas' veterans and learn how to be a professional both on and off the court from the likes of Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, and Klay Thompson.

While Flagg would likely pan out to be a superstar either way, having veteran leaders that are also stars on his team will help guide him on what it takes to win in this league and be a high level player even faster than if he had to figure all the answers out himself on a younger team, and this tutelage will only lead him to reaching his potential even faster once the keys of Dallas' franchise are handed over to him at some point.

It's highly unlikely Flagg would have a disastrous season in Dallas based on his pedigree, but the situation Dallas has in place does put less pressure on Flagg to the No. 1 option right away as Kidd referenced, and this is truly the best scenario he could walk into in terms of being able to learn behind the best as a young player while still getting the opportunity to push for a championship.