Count what has changed at American Airlines Center since the Dallas Mavericks last played a meaningful game, and the list is almost everything.
The general manager who traded Luka Doncic was fired in November. Anthony Davis was traded to Washington in February. Masai Ujiri arrived as team president in May, hired Mike Schmitz as general manager four days later, and within two weeks the club and Jason Kidd had parted ways.
Klay Thompson is in Miami. Dusty May, who won a national championship at Michigan in April, is on the sideline.
What stayed is Cooper Flagg. That was the point.
A rookie season worth rebuilding around
The Mavericks went 26-56, their worst record in eight years, and Flagg was the reason anyone watched. He averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.5 assists, becoming only the fourth rookie since the ABA-NBA merger to reach 20-6-4, after Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Doncic. On April 4 he scored 51 against Orlando, the first teenager in league history to reach 50.
He edged Charlotte's Kon Knueppel for Rookie of the Year by 26 voting points, one of the tightest races in more than two decades.
When Kidd left on May 19, Ujiri described the move as a new direction built around Flagg. Everything since has followed that sentence.
Building to his timeline
Look at who Dallas brought in. Zaccharie Risacher, 21, the No. 1 pick in 2024, came from Atlanta in a three-team trade. Morez Johnson Jr., 20, a forward who played for May at Michigan, was the No. 9 pick. Sergio de Larrea, a 20-year-old Spanish guard, arrived through a draft-night deal. Santi Aldama and Marcus Sasser came in a six-team trade in July.
None of them is a star. All of them are young enough to grow up alongside one.
The exception is Kyrie Irving, 34, who missed all of last season recovering from a torn ACL and has been cleared without restrictions. His presence gives Flagg a closer for the fourth quarter while the rest of the roster catches up.
