It's a good question, and it also involves projecting when Kyrie Irving comes back from his ACL tear. So let's assume Flagg is a Maverick and Irving returns a few months into the 2025-26 season. Let's run through the projected lineup:

This is emphatically not the situation Cooper Flagg is about to walk into. If everything goes right, the Mavericks -- who improbably won the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft on Monday night -- could genuinely contend for the 2026 championship.