A few months ago, in the WNBA Draft, UConn’s Paige Bueckers was a sure thing for the number one pick, just like fellow generational great, Caitlin Clark was a year prior.
Now, in the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft, we have the surest shot since Victor Wembanyama in Duke’s Cooper Flagg. Taken with the first selection by the Dallas Mavericks, the young 18-year-old joins the likes of LeBron James, Dwight Howard, and fellow Blue Devil Zion Williamson as one of the youngest draft choices ever.
But you better believe he’s ready to go now.
With a captured Flagg and Paige taken out of the W playbook, it’s a new era for Dallas basketball—just like Dirk, just like Dončić. The Mavs may have lost Luka to the Lakers as fans called for GM Nico Harrison’s firing, but now the president of basketball operations looks like a damn genius.
First things first, the Texans didn’t exactly get a hill of beans in return for number 77. They got Anthony Davis—a certified champion, defensive presence, and one of the best big men in a league that has slim pickings when it comes to pivots. You only had to watch the playoffs to see that the Lakers’ gap in the middle was as big as someone who can whistle through their two front teeth.
If AD stays healthy and Kyrie Irving stays, the Dallas Mavericks will have a big three that could even challenge the champion OKC. And this is before all this floor spacing leaves Klay Thompson and his flamethrower open from the outside.
Flagg will be flying, going from Jon Scheyer to Jason Kidd as he swaps the white and blue of Duke for those of Dallas.
Oh yeah, there are other guys who just got picked too.
Flagg’s friends from his Duke dorm, for example, will also join him in the big leagues. Kon Knueppel joins the Hornets’ hive out in the “Dookie,” rivalling the state of North Carolina. Meanwhile, big centre Khaman Maluach from South Sudan was selected by Houston and traded to Phoenix for you know who.
If you thought the San Antonio Spurs’ young core of Wemby, Fox, and Sochan was primed for promise, then wait until you see whom they selected second. Rutgers star Dylan Harper is the real deal. Coached by his mother and with a basketball-playing brother, his family pedigree is rich with potential and free of nepotism.
Now, if Dylan plays anything like his father Ron Harper (a champion with Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers), especially during his Cavalier days before the injury, then we will have another star to add to the family tree.
San Antonio’s saloon of talent, a Maverick Fantastic Four, and the Kevin Durant trade to the Houston Rockets make the Texan Triangle a Bermuda Triangle for the rest of the basketball association.
With the third pick, Baylor’s V.J. Edgecombe looks to help anyone sick of the process out in Philly. Alongside Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, Edgecombe could rewrite the roster and the future, especially now, as it seems star player Paul George is on his way out of the City of Brotherly Love.
George criticized Harper’s Rutgers teammate Ace Bailey for skipping his pre-draft workout with the Sixers. Now, it seems that Bailey is unhappy that he was picked by Utah with the fifth pick. The young Ace is in the league now, though, and that’s all that matters. How his NBA future pans out from here on is up to him. With a name like his and the talent to match, he’s looking ready to play like jazz.
Texan guard Tre Johnson heads to the U.S. capital with the Wizards. Jeremiah Fears looks to put his name on the line against anyone trying to compete with his Pelicans in New Orleans. And Russian Egor Demin is the biggest thing to come to Brooklyn since Mikhail Prokhorov.
That’s how six, seven, and eight have played out. Meanwhile, in The 6, your Toronto Raptors have snapped up South Carolina forward Collin Murray-Boyles. Consider this a rebirth, like the new ’Jurassic World’ movie starring Scarlett Johansson.
All this, and we still have a second round to go live from Brooklyn. The NBA Finals and its crowned champion only came to a conclusion a few days ago. Moving in a New York minute, the ticker tape from the Thunder parade in Oklahoma hasn’t had time to be cleaned up yet. Yet, the life of the league goes on.
Before the madness of free agency, we have the winds of change, flying through Flagg. The future is here, and it’s hanging on Cooper.
