The Dallas Mavericks selected former Duke basketball freshman sensation Cooper Flagg with the first overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. However, the Mavs are so easy for Duke fans to root for beyond Flagg alone, as the team has a few other former Blue Devils on the roster in Dereck Lively II and Kyrie Irving.
Flagg will now join two fellow Blue Devils of the past, and one in Irving who was also selected with the No. 1 overall pick in his respective draft, as the guard went first in the 2011 draft to the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team he won an NBA Championship with.
Lively has spent his entire NBA career thus far with Dallas and was drafted into the franchise like Flagg. Lively was selected with the 12th overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.
Both Irving and Lively will be awesome mentors for Flagg to utilize, as both have championship experience of their own. Irving won a title with Cleveland back in 2016, and Lively is fresh off an NBA Finals appearance with Dallas in 2024.
Now, the Mavericks' rotation looks a whole lot different than it did when the franchise made it to the Finals, as Mavs' general manager Nico Harrison traded away superstar Luka Dončić at last season's trade deadline, which was maybe the most shocking trade in the history of the NBA.
Regardless, Flagg now enters a situation where the franchise is ready to win now and is expecting to contend in the playoffs right away, a landscape that most No. 1 overall picks don't see in their rookie seasons. The Mavericks are seen as a title contender heading into the 2025-26 campaign, and Flagg will be a big part of that.
The rookie will have to wait to get on the court with Irving, as the star guard is set to miss a large chunk of next season after suffering a torn ACL. However, he and Lively will be frontcourt partners right away. It will be interesting to see how Flagg mixes into this crowded Dallas frontcourt with Lively, Anthony Davis, PJ Washington, and Daniel Gafford.
Flagg is also seen as the heavy favorite to win the NBA Rookie of the Year award, but being on a complete team ready to compete, it's unclear how heavy his usage on offense will be. Most of the other top rookies are on young, rebuilding squads where they will have the green light to take a ton of shots, but that's not the case for the top pick out of Durham.