DALLAS — A photograph is supposedly worth a thousand words, but the above shot is of well more than a thousand empty seats in the middle of a good game featuring one of the most surprising teams in the NBA that has a teenager who is already a top-10 player in the league.
Just as Luka Doncic was better than Dirk Nowitzki, Cooper Flagg may one day be better than Luka Doncic.
This does not justify the trade of Doncic to L.A., where he is on an MVP start and with each game he plays he solidifies former Mavs GM Nico Harrison’s spot in the Stupid Decisions Hall of Fame.
It was one year ago when Mavs owner Patrick Dumont essentially admitted to approving what should have been a decade-ruining decision when he fired Harrison, who has since then all but vanished.
How the Mavs wound up with Flagg will always be a case of one horrible season resulting in a lightning strike of dumb luck that saved a franchise. The amount of butts in seats says the team has not recovered, but the product on the floor says they are in a good place all things considered.
Whatever feelings you have about the Mavericks moving Doncic to the Lakers, time to get over it. Whatever fantasy you have about Doncic coming back to the Mavericks needs to be dumped, too.
Flagg is a top-10 NBA player, and he’s not 20. The last time we saw an NBA teenager do this wasn’t Luka but LeBron.
“It’s clear to me Flagg has gotten stronger. There are some real similarities between the two players even though they are different,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said on Monday. Carlisle was Luka’s coach in his first three NBA seasons with the Mavs.
“They can score from anywhere on the floor, and they have a real physical impact on the game offensively. Luka is so strong, and Flagg is even stronger. They are both great and getting even greater.”
The next step in the Mavs’ recovery is convincing not the league but the fans that the team is legitimate, and worth caring about.
Attendance issues
On Monday night the Mavs hosted the Indiana Pacers, and it was hard not to notice two undeniable truths.
1.) The team is better than anticipated. Team president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri and first-year coach Dusty May assembled a long, athletic roster that can play. Add that with the return of Kyrie Irving paired with Flagg is a problem for opponents.
2.) The crowd was lame. The announced attendance was 19,065, which feels about 7,000 generous. Playing the Pacers at 7 p.m. on a Monday night isn’t exactly a great draw.
According to regulars at the Mavs’ previous six home games before the date with the Pacers, AAC crowds thus far have been visibly not great.
Heading into Thursday, the Mavs averaged 19,040 at home, 10th in the NBA, but these numbers are inflated. That figure is not too far off from this time one year ago, when the team fell to a 2-7 start en route to a 26-win season.
Save for the NFL, and top major college football games, attendance at sporting events this summer/fall have been at the least visibly off across the country. An NBA regular-season game before Christmas can be a tough sell.
It does not help that the price of seemingly everything up to and including breathing is more expensive than ever; attending an NBA game is a luxury that a lot of people simply don’t want to even try to afford. The Mavs also increased the price of tickets two years ago.
The Mavs are scheduled to leave the AAC for a new home, maybe as early as 2032, but attendance is not because of the arena.
Mavs are the long game
Trading Irving may still ultimately make the most sense for the Mavericks, who despite a tough early season schedule are 7-5 in a Western Conference that looks as deep as it’s been maybe ever.
Since returning from a torn ACL that forced him to miss all of last season, Irving looks like Irving. He may be the most skilled player in the NBA this century. The Mavs wanted to see what they had with him playing next to Flagg, and this combination is better than hoped.
Because Flagg is better than hoped. He should be a freshman in college, and now he’s abusing grown men in a grown man’s league every night. Everything the Mavericks do on offense and defense runs through a 19-year-old.
“He’s a great player,” Carlisle said. “It’s rare to have a guy 6-10 that handles so much pick-and-rolls and has such a great feel for making plays, and scoring, and a threat to score. His shooting continues to get better.”
Flagg, and the Mavs, are still incomplete, but there is good team on the floor, and the bench.
Considering what the Mavericks did to themselves on Feb. 2, 2025 (the day they traded Doncic to the Lakers for what now amounts to Max Christie and a draft pick), it would make sense that a hurt fan base is not running back to the arena to pack the place.
One year after they made the move that had to be done, the Mavericks are in a positive place, and the next step is for fans to believe it.