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The Dallas Mavericks won the Cooper Flagg raffle earlier this week when they secured the first general selection of this year’s NBA Draft.
The MAVs have already suggested that the selection is not available in an exchange, and all the signs suggest that they take Duke’s star.
It is equivalent to a rescue for Dallas, which changed Luka Dončić during the season.
Because the Mavericks only had a 1.8% chance to obtain the first choice, it has been speculated that the lottery was manipulated.
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Duke Blue Devils striker, Cooper Flagg, reacts in the second half in Dean E. Smith Center. (Images Bob Donnan/Imagn)
Anyway, it is a great impulse for the MAVs, who obtain only the fourth player to win the wooden prize as a first -year student, joining Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis and Zion Williamson.
However, Stephen A. Smith said Flagg’s ability was not the only reason to select it.
“When you have someone with that type of potential, and they are white and you are in the United States, you keep that guy. I tell you right now,” said Smith in Wednesday’s edition of “First Toma.”
Smith backed up a bit, noting that the MAVs should not choose flagg strictly because it is white.
The Dallas Mavericks celebrate the Lottery of the NBA Draft. (AP/IMAGN)
“The first business order is that you can dance,” Smith added. “It is because it can play, but the fact that it is white, commercializable, even its name makes it more commercialized. I am not happening that at all.”
Smith’s comments echo some about Caitlin Clark last year, particularly WNBA MVP A’JA Wilson.
“I think it’s a big thing. I think many people can say that it’s not about black and white, but, for me, it is,” Wilson said at that time. “It really is because you can be first category in what you are as a black woman, but maybe that’s something that people don’t want to see.
“They do not see it as commercializable, so it does not matter how much work. It does not matter what we all do as black women, we will still be swept under the carpet. That is why my blood boils when people say it is not about race, because it is.”
The Duke Blue Devils Cooper Flagg striker (2) Dribla the ball against the Houston Cougars striker J’wan Roberts (13) during the first half of a final game Four during the NCAA 2025 tournament in the Alamodome. (Images Bob Donnan/Imagn)
The NBA draft, where Flagg will formally discover its professional destination, is scheduled for June 25.
