Cooper Flagg Earns Unanimous All-Rookie First Team Honor After Historic Mavericks Debut
Cooper Flagg is being called the best Mavericks rookie since Luka Doncic. The voters agree.
The 19-year-old was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team for the 2025-26 season as a unanimous selection. That is the first Maverick to earn that honor since Doncic did it in 2018-19. The bar has been raised once again in Dallas.
Flagg’s numbers backed up the recognition. He averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 0.9 blocks, and 1.2 steals across 33.5 minutes per game in 70 appearances. He also won the NBA Rookie of the Year award by a comfortable margin.
Those are not just good rookie stats. Those are top-50 player stats in the entire league. Flagg was already producing at an All-Star level by January and never came back down. The Mavericks won 39 games, missed the play-in, and still felt like a team rebuilding around a real centerpiece.
The Mavericks are now in the most important offseason of the post-Doncic era. They fired Nico Harrison earlier this year after Doncic was traded to the Lakers in February 2025. That trade is still being processed by Mavs fans, who showed up to games last year wearing “Fire Nico” shirts and chanting all season. Harrison is gone. The next era is Flagg’s.
Step one is hiring a head coach. The Mavericks have already begun the search. Duke coach Jon Scheyer, who coached Flagg during his lone college season at Duke, has reportedly had exploratory conversations with the franchise. Scheyer is also the same guy who guided Duke to a Final Four last season. The connection to Flagg is obvious.
Other names the Mavericks are expected to look at include Rockets assistant Royal Ivey, Raptors assistant Jama Mahlalela, Celtics assistant Tony Dobbins, and Heat consultant Noah LaRoche. That is a younger, more analytics-friendly list than Dallas has historically gone with. The Mavericks understand they need a coach who can develop Flagg and build around him for the next decade.
Step two is the draft. Dallas holds a top-10 pick again this year, the second consecutive season the franchise has been in that range. The pick should be used on a complementary piece, ideally a wing shooter or a stretch four who can play alongside Flagg in the front court. The 2026 draft has plenty of those.
Step three is free agency. Dallas needs to add real talent in the supporting cast. The roster currently has Flagg, Klay Thompson on the back end of his career, P.J. Washington, and a collection of role players. A second star is the holy grail. Even a third-tier All-Star type would change Dallas’ ceiling immediately.
The Doncic trade remains a sore subject. Flagg helps. He cannot replace what Doncic was, but he gives the Mavericks an actual reason to believe again. He is younger. His ceiling is enormous. His attitude is everything the Mavericks could have asked for in a No. 1 pick. He stayed in Dallas after being told the Mavericks were never on his radar before draft night. He embraced the franchise.
The Mavericks have a lot of work to do. They also have the most important piece in place. Cooper Flagg’s career is just getting started, and Dallas is going to ride it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
