They're about to have the number one pick in the NBA Draft tonight. They're going to select Cooper Flag, the undisputed number one prospecting.
This bad boy.
He's a guy who when he was a sophomore in high school, they knew one day he would be the number one pick of the NBA Draft. It's just been a no brainer, and the MAVs got him somehow. They lucked into this, and it is an organization that desperately needed it. We are here at the American Airlines Center doing our show. We're going to take you till six o'clock with this Draft Day special, and then we're gonna simulcast the MAVs TV coverage. It'll happen right here in
ninety seven point one Eagle. Our show is brought to you by k Post Company. They did the roof at the AAC Global I Field in at and T Stadium, Roofing, waterproofing and solar solutions. Thank you to Nick Post and our friends at k Post Company for being the sponsor of this Draft Day extravaganza. This segment here is brought to you by Andrew's American Pizza Kitchen voted best pizzeria in DFW by readers of the Dallas Morning News. There's
only one location of Andrews American Pizza Kitchen. It's in Plano, Preston and Plano. It's so good that again it's named best in Dallas. If you are a foodie and you seek out the best restaurants, aren't you curious? Why did readers of Dallas Wearing News say that Andrews American Pizza Kitchen is the best in down Don't you think you owe yourself a trip out there to Preston and Plano
Parkway Andrew's American Pizza. They've mastered five different types of pizza, great craft beer, amazing pasta great place to watch sports. I go there sometimes just to hang out. Andrew's American Pizza Kitchen. Now we're gonna get to know Cooper Flag a little bit better. He'll be the matter, he'll be a Maverick. As what time is the pick gonna happen?
Yeah?
I mean seven, probably seven, ten, seven fifteen, right are on that because the draft one starts on seven? So uh, this is the uh, the mystery behind it is not here like it was the Luca Draft And that was the last time we were this close so that that part is a little strange because we're frankly not used to our teams having the number one pick in the draft.
Yeah, I you know, I was thinking about all the number one picks overall in DFW sports history. I go back to I think it was nineteen eighty one. The Mavericks launched in nineteen eighty eighty one. They drafted Mark McGuire, the number one overall pick. That was my favorite player. That's when I fell in love with basketball at that time.
I was eleven. And you know, of course Troy aik Ben Troy what year was that, eight eighty eight, eighty nine, ninety somewhere in there, and obviously went on to do great things as the Page Buckets. They just, of course just just had one. But I can't think of another. And plus sometimes you get the number one pick and it doesn't matter. It's just a draft where there's not a for sure number one. This is a draft where
Cooper Flag is. People are saying one of the best two way prospects since Anthony Davis.
You know, this guy is a can't miss.
Rock star and they got him, and uh, you know this this organization deeply, deeply needed it if you think about just how traumatized this team's fan base was from trading Luca. We were all blindsided by that. And for me, I still think it's the worst trade in the history of trading. Like it's a terrible trade. I wouldn't do that trade in a millionaires for any reason. I would
never make that trade. You cannot justify that trade. But if you look at it and you're like, Okay, you got Anthony Davis back, you got Max Christy, you got a first round pick, and you get Cooper Flag, now obviously that's not what the trade was. I don't believe in conspiracies and I don't believe in all that, but that's the net net. And so for me, I'm not gonna I've been a MAVs fan my whole life since eighty and so if I'm not gonna leave the Mavericks.
I thought about it, but eventually I would have come around and been a MAVs fan again. But what I love most is hope. When you have a young star with a big, bright future, you have hope. And now they've got the youngest player in the league, they're about to have him, and they've got hope, and.
So I'm back.
I'm I'm able to compartmentalize. Yes, I thought that was a terrible trade, but I'm not mad at the MAVs.
I'm moving on.
I know there's a certain force to the fan base that is still clinging to well, it wasn't supposed to happen. Still, though, that trade is almost like now that you ended up with a number one pick, it almost rewards the issue that the trade, like the stupidity of the trade or whatever you want to call it. And I get that, but I would also say, like, when something like that happens out of nowhere and it's not expected to happen, there's a lot of things in life that work that way.
If your parents didn't meet and then have relations with each other, you wouldn't exist. Like, there's so many things that happen on a day to day basis. If you didn't jump into traffic, you know, if you jumped into traffic five minutes earlier, you might have been in that collision.
So kind of like Butterfly, it's just yeah, it's.
Just the way life goes and it worked out really well for us. So to me, it feels almost greedy to still be like up in arms about things, and you can still have concerns and issues with how the thing might be ran going forward, But overall, I just think it's one of those things where you go, Wow, it's been a crazy sy months and I'm way it's unbelievable to feel the way we feel now compared to how we were feeling in April.
Right, because even if they had the number two pick, I wouldn't be over the Luca trade and the fact that it's number one when there's a transcendent number one player, Christina you talked earlier, I think he made a good point about you think it's gonna help you heal with the Luca trade once Cooper Flag is actually in a jersey and playing for the MAVs.
Yeah, because, like you said, the whole trade was just such a blind side. I'm still just scared that it might happen again. I don't think it will, but Ted earlier got me excited too, because one thing about Luca, like, yes, he's a great player, but he made basketball so fun to watch, Like I loved just watching Luca. I still love watching Luca. Like you can be a mass fan
and a Luca fan. It's okay anyway, but so Cooper Flag and I watched a few highlights as well, Like he has that as well, Like he's really good at.
Basketball, but he's fun to watch.
He does these really cool things you don't see other players do, and he makes it look easy and again fun. So I'm just excited to have them watching this again. I mean, Kyrie is fun to watch as well, but he's been hurt whatever.
Anyway, I think it's a big part of this is like we haven't experienced anything with Cooper Flag yet. Yeah, very few of us went and watched a ton of Duke basketball last year, like until you experienced these good times with him in a MAVs uniform.
We had questions about Luca. We didn't know when.
We got looka we we thought it was cool that it happened, but we still didn't know.
We were not sure.
And then it became you know, the stories had come out like oh yeah, he's taken over practice and before pre in training camp and things like that, and you know, Dirk said some good things about him. So like that's where it's gonna I think bring a lot of people back in is when just just having good things happen.
Now, I want to play a couple of things. Yesterday, he had a.
Pre draft press conference, as a lot of players did, and he can't acknowledge that he is going to be picked by the Dallas Mavericks, like because it's not official and he's just not allowed to talk about it. Uh. Max was telling us a little bit earlier, like Duke put out a congrats to Dallas MAVs in a video of Cooper fight, like they can do that, but like no one in the NBA can do that right now. So he's getting asked all these questions and he can't
say anything about the Mavericks. So I just thought you guys would like some of the things that happened in this pre draft press conference, Like how about this question when he was asked, do you like lobster?
Being from you like lobster?
You know, lobster isn't my personal.
Favorite, but you know, a good main lobster role. You know, my trainer's life makes a really nice lobster role. I think is really good.
Good, thank you very much. My trainer's wife makes a really good lobster if you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, I'm gonna start using that trainer's wife. That is good. That is good.
So basically I don't have a good feel for what his personality is like. I don't I don't know, like Luca. We love Luca, but Luca was not a good interview.
He was on Language seven, you know, right, Yeah, a lot of it.
Yeah, and so I don't know if this could be the same, and especially the age. So what he's he's eighteen, So how many eighteen year olds give good interviews?
You know?
You know, So I don't know what his personality's like. And obviously he's not done growing into whatever his personality is going to be. But I do like listening to technicals Pain talk about what a killer he is on the court.
I'm sorry, Yeah, godly technicals Pain.
Yeah, that would be crazy, rest of Peace, that would be crazy if Technicals Pain was here. God, I was guess I was thinking that he's who taught I haven't everything, But yeah, Ted Emrick, he was great when he was talking.
About what a killer he is. And you know some players have that.
Some players don't, like Kobe had that, Michael Jordan had that.
You know, not everybody is wired like that.
I didn't know Ted had seen that since iigh school because his story is crazy. Basically, I'm too good in this small town in Maine. And I think he had a quote from his mom was Mama. He said, if you're the best player in the gym, you need to go to a bigger gym. Yes, and that's really really great. So he was asked and he's got to dance around these questions. Are you looking forward to being a Maverick?
Yeah?
I mean I'm not on social media too much, and I think, like I said earlier, I'm just trying to take it one day at a time. So that is the case tomorrow that ends up happening. I mean, I've heard it's an incredible fan base with incredible support, so I'll be excited to learn more about it and get down there.
Okay, dude, not on social media, thank you. I know you'd like that. I love that.
Is that?
Is that true though? Or is he just saying that because he's eighteen? I mean, how many eighteen year old or not? Are you act? I mean, you're you're older and eighteen.
But I mean I got social media.
I know Cooper Flagg has an Instagram, but I don't think he's active on Twitter or acts.
Now.
It's like he's probably got a team of people who handle this stuff.
Yeah, I mean his family's prepped for this for a while.
You know, the idea of you know, we've talked about this a lot here in Dallas Fort Worth, where the idea of Tony Romo going on a vacation where it's like, why are you doing that? Why aren't you just somewhere, you know, throwing a football through rubber tire, you know, throwing it through the hole. And why are you just looking at game film? What do you mean you live outside of that, you know, And so you want these
guys to be robots. Sean Lee was like that, an absolute robot who's just anytime he's not playing, he's looking at film or lifting weights. But then you get guys where they're like they have big personalities and they're on social media, like Derek Hollin and people like, oh my god, he's doing Arnold Schwartz and anger impressions get back in the you know, you know, And so I mean, you like these guys to have personalities and be great interviews. But the reality is, I would if I'm drafted a
guy to you know, at number one. I love that he's not active on social media. Stay away from social media. There's really not much good that happens on social media. I mean, there's a bunch of toxicity and poison. Don't ever let these people some guy just eating a tweaky on his couch can critique your game. You don't need to see everyone's opinion.
This is the thing i'ld say.
Like the Luca thing, which was devastating for so many people, it was also devastating for so many people who also talk trash about Luca actively as a mask. Yes you loved him, but you got mad at his lack of effort on defense, or his inability to stay in shape and all that stuff.
Yelling at the rest every call.
You can't act like that's the only thing that was, because we were all bitching about that too, and like it's.
Just what the world is. Though.
I look around the league and you look at all these achilles injuries now you know, and they they come from strained calves. And then if you know, if you look at what Boston's doing, Okay, our best player tours achilles.
We have to get rid of the team.
We have to get rid of everyone, so we're not you know, in this luxury tax and it's like you, it can bury your franchise if one of your best players has to miss an entire year with an achilles issue. And Luca had three calf injuries in two years, and so yeah, man, it's just this. You know, it's hard. It's hard to not tie Cooper flag back to Luca because it all happened in such close proximity to itself.
Then, if you had one seat to give to a celebrity, you're gonna sit court side at a game with someone. He had one seat to give to a celebrity, who would it be?
Probably my guy Tom Cruise. We got a lot to catch up. We've gone through a lot together. Probably want to hang out with my guy Tom.
Here was Cooper Flagg's answer.
Court sights.
That's a good question.
I don't know if you count Larry Bird is a celebrity, but that would be really cool.
No, I don't have a favorite rapper. No, I don't have a favorite rab yo. He doesn't have a favorite rapper, but Larry Bird, I mean a classic.
The best thing he could have said is derk And you know, but he was expecting a question like that, right, he said, But Larry Birds, imagine.
Larry Bird's always been his favorite player, is what I read. So he loves Larry Bird, and.
Man, I don't know what you know if Dirk will be You know, we've heard a lot about this with the Luca trade and the moves that the MAVs have made that have gotten away from some of the guys Dirk loves, and Dirk hasn't really been around that much, and so I don't know if he'll have a relationship with Cooper Flagg.
I really hope he will. I hope he does.
Should be in LA a lot doing basketball, Yeah, doing the Amazon thing too, So.
Yeah, I don't know.
Hey, how do you want Cooper Flag to score his first NBA bucket?
What would you like for that to be?
I would like him to dunk on Lou Dort Lou Dort.
I like the question here because how do you want to call christ India bucket?
Maybe duncan on some my I thought that would be pretty cool.
Nice And then what position are you Cooper Flag?
Yeah, I think positionless is a great was a great way to put it. You know, I'll do whatever you know coach wants me to do. I'll play any role. So for me, it's about just doing a ton of different things with the court. Thing, like I said earlier, just being an impact player, you know, impacting both sides of the ball at a high level and impacting winning
at a high level. So where that's you know, getting it off the you know, off the room in a rebound and pushing a transition, that's something I feel like I can do at a high level. So I would love to do that. Or if it's playing off ball, you know, cutting, slashing, spotting up, you know, I'm I'm ready to do whatever whatever that may be.
I don't think it's the most exciting interview yet, you know, but maybe you know, in time that'll come. Right now, he's just going through the process of having everyone watching.
Him, and yeah, he'll get more comfortable and he can actually talk about being a Dallas maver.
No.
God, I love the answer, though, great answer. I love the answer. It's like he was made at a laboratory.
This is the thing, like we've Another thing that was infuriating about the Luca trade was we had spent all this time and attention to detail and building a team around him and had done that and gone to the finals and lost, and then even though he was hurt. Still, we were kind of dunking on the thunder the two times we played them, once with him and once without him.
It is like, this is kind of our year. We don't have to go shake things up.
We had built everything around him, but if you could take yourself away from that, building around Cooper Flag is so simple. Because of that, they just said, kind of do everything. You don't have to just go we have to get shooters around him.
He can do everything everything.
So I'm pretty jacked about this, and I think, like again, because we've known what's gonna happen, He's gonna get picked tonight. It's that part's been hard for me to kind of get excited. But the more talking about it, and in a minute, I'm gonna ask a couple of things. One is would you buy this item that's surrounding Cooper Flag today? And two, we think his family was going through because they thought they were gonna be going to either Washington
or Charlotte. And there's a huge article that was written about that today and it's all awesome to see how their.
Minds went on Draft day as well.
Okay, tasty, that's coming up next as we continue our coverage of the NBA Draft. The Mavericks with the number one pick, Cooper Flag will be selected. Our coverage brought to you by k Post Company. We're gonna go till six o'clock and then we're gonna hand it off to the TV broadcast. We'll look at We're at the AEC right now, and you can look down at center court and you see Jeff skin Wade, Ted Emrick and Mark
Folowell down there at center stage. They're gonna be holding down the coverage not on TV and on the radio.
Wow.
And again, our coverage brought to you by k Post Company. They did the roofs at the AAC Globeli Field in at and T Stadium. Big thanks to Nick Post for sponsoring our coverage here of the draft. All right, coming up next, we get you ready. We wrap things up with our draft coverage and hand it off to the official draft coverage that's all coming your way next