NBA executives embarrassingly eat crow as awful Cooper Flagg take backfires

Cooper Flagg is playing like one of the best 18-year-old rookies that this league has ever seen, and all of his doubters are being forced to watch from the sidelines as he dominates game after game. Some of his biggest doubters came in the form of anonymous NBA executives, and they are eating crow thanks to how well Flagg is playing this season.

Last month, Kevin O'Connor of Yahoo Sports reported that some NBA executives believed that Flagg would go third at best in the 2026 NBA Draft if he hadn't reclassified and gone to Duke last season. Flagg was supposed to be a senior in high school last season, but he reclassified and became a Blue Devil as a 17-year-old. He was the best player in college basketball, and every team in the NBA would've loved to make him a centerpiece of their squad.

Despite this, some executives even predicted that he would have been drafted fifth or sixth in next summer's draft. This was an extremely bold thing to say about a player who already had future star written all over him. He had dominated at every level of hoops he had played in, and it was only a matter of time before he took over the NBA.

People around the NBA completely underestimated Cooper Flagg

This take was reckless when it was reported, and it looks even worse now. Not only has Flagg proven that he is the best rookie this season by a long shot, but he's looking like a future superstar. The Mavericks have one of the league's most promising young players leading them to marquee victories at 18 years old, and the wins will continue to pile up as he gets older.

At the time the piece was published, Flagg had only played in 11 NBA games. The start to his career was much slower than expected, as he averaged 15.0 points on 42 percent shooting in these games, but the flashes were there. Those who watched Flagg's process closely could tell that he was going to be special, and it didn't take him long to prove that these executives from around the league were going to be wrong.

Since that moment, Flagg has been much better. He looks much more comfortable, and his finishing around the bucket has been a staple of his game. His mid-range jumper is also falling, and he is showing the makings of a three-level scorer if he can get his threes to start going down again.

Since O'Connor revealed these executives' brutal analysis of Flagg's potential compared to the top of the 2026 draft class, he has been on a tear. He is averaging 21.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.3 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game while shooting 50.8 percent from the field since this article was published, and even poured in a 42-point game against the Utah Jazz.

This was the game that he really put the league on notice, and he seems to do something special every night. The Mavericks are winning games, Flagg is playing like a star, and they are finally starting to string together some consistency after a 5-15 start to the season.

Dallas is 6-2 over their last eight games and sits at 11-16 just under two months into the season. This isn't where many fans expected them to be, but they're on the rise. That's largely due to the ascension of Flagg, and he isn't slowing down any time soon.

His game is coming into form at the perfect time, and this narrative about him not being a marquee pick in next year's draft is shameful. Time will tell how Flagg compares to players like AJ Dybantsa, Cam Boozer, and Darryn Peterson, but if the first 27 games of his rookie year have proved anything, it's that he's on pace to be one of the faces of the NBA.