The basketball world’s eyes again will be fixed on Cooper Flagg, the youngest player in the NBA, when the Dallas Mavericks host the Washington Wizards on Friday.
At 18 years and 305 days, Flagg became the second-youngest player to start in their NBA debut — just behind LeBron James (18 years, 303 days in 2003) — in Wednesday’s 125-92 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in Dallas.
Flagg, the first pick in this year’s draft, went scoreless in the first half before finishing with a 10-point, 10-rebound effort over 31 minutes.
Until Kyrie Irving returns from a torn left ACL, Flagg has been entrusted with lead ballhandling duties — ahead of free-agent signing D’Angelo Russell — and acquitted himself solidly against the Spurs.
“I thought Cooper played within himself,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. “He took what the defense gave him. He was making plays, he was diving on the floor. He’s one who’s not going to shoot it every time he touches it.
“He tries to play the game the right way. As a rookie, he’ll learn from this game. We all will, and we’ll be better next time we take the floor.”
Anthony Davis posted 22 points and 13 boards, but Dallas was outrebounded 50-37 by the Victor Wembanyama-inspired Spurs.
San Antonio shot 57.5% from the floor to the Mavs’ 37.3%, outscored the home side 68-26 in the paint and racked up 31 fast-break points to eight.
“I know that we were playing a lot of isolated basketball,” Davis said. “We’re not going to win games like that. Everything we did was correctable. There were a lot of self-inflicted wounds on both ends of the floor.
“We’ve got to be able to move the basketball from side to side and get good looks. We’ll get back into the lab, watch film and get ready for Washington.”
The Wizards were left to rue a season-opening 133-120 road loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday.
Washington trailed 40-23 after the first quarter and the gap grew to 22 points early in the second before a second-half revival camouflaged some of that initial damage.
When asked why his team started with such insufficient force, Wizards coach Brian Keefe shrugged his shoulders.
“Who knows?” he said. “I don’t know the answer to that … we made a mindset shift at the half and we saw what we’re capable of doing, but we’ve got to do that the whole game. I did not like the start. They (Bucks) came out and gave it to us pretty good in the first quarter.
“We responded in the second half. We played with more force and started getting some stops, which allowed us to get out and get some easy baskets. I thought our ball movement was really good in the second half. But you can’t start games like that. It’s hard to keep up.”
Khris Middleton scored 23 points in his first game back at Milwaukee since the Bucks dealt the three-time All-Star at last season’s trade deadline.
Middleton, a key component of the Bucks’ 2021 NBA championship, received a moving tribute video from his former team and a friendly reception from the fans.
