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NEW YORK – Arguably the worst-kept secret in sports history, the Dallas Mavericks made it official on Wednesday night when they selected Duke superstar Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.
From the moment the Mavericks won the NBA Draft Lottery on May 12 until Wednesday, this moment was never in doubt. But the conspiracy theorists believe that Flagg became a Maverick long before May 12.
Dallas shocked the sports world in early February when it traded, seemingly, its franchise player Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in a three-team deal that also involved the Utah Jazz. In return, the Mavericks received Anthony Davis. But did they also receive the first pick in the 2025 NBA Draft so they could select Flagg? That’s the question that has been circulating the Internet.
For his part, Flagg did not care to address Internet conspiracy theorists when OutKick asked him on Wednesday night.
“I don’t know what to say about that,” Flagg said with a chuckle. “I have no insider information if that’s what you’re looking for, but I just feel blessed for the way it all worked out.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver essentially denied that to be the case earlier this week when he said on a podcast that he only found out about the Doncic trade hours before the rest of the world did.
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“Luka is a good example where the teams are very secretive, they’re not necessarily tipping us off. We had heard about it before the public, but it was only a matter of hours,” Silver said, while also adding that he does not possess the power to veto trades – not that he would have done that, anyway.
That isn’t stopping people from wondering. What are the odds that the Mavericks would trade their best player to the Los Angeles Lakers – the most popular NBA franchise – and three months later hit a less than 2 percent chance to draft a player expected to be the next great league superstar?
Well, the answer is a 1.8% chance. And that does happen.
Obviously, the NBA is never going to admit that it rigged a draft lottery and, quite frankly, the chances are quite slim that it did. At the end of the day, Cooper Flagg is now an NBA player for the Dallas Mavericks and has a chance to become the next face of the league.
The NBA needs it, too, because ratings are declining at a rapid pace. The league desperately wants Flagg to become the next great superstar that draws casual sports fans to professional basketball. Whether he can be that guy remains to be seen.
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