Mavericks plan to draft Duke's Cooper Flagg at No. 1 after surprise lottery win, won't trade pick, per report

Dallas does not have another surprise in store for draft night

The Dallas Mavericks gave the NBA one of the biggest surprises in league history when they traded Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in February. When they won the NBA Draft lottery on Monday, fans wondered if Nico Harrison might have an encore in mind. That said, there don't appear to be any more surprises in store when the No. 1 pick is announced in June. The Mavericks will not trade the pick, and they will select Duke's Cooper Flagg, according to ESPN.

Flagg has been the obvious No. 1 pick all season, but Harrison's decision to trade the 25-year-old Dončić for a 31-year-old Anthony Davis suggested that Dallas was all-in on the present. Had that been the case, Dallas could have offered Flagg for a number of veteran All-Stars, most notably Giannis Antetokounmpo should he become available.

However, Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont views Flagg as a "gift," according to ESPN's Tim McMahon. That seems appropriate given the long odds Dallas overcame to get him. The Mavericks entered Monday's lottery with only a 1.8% chance to land Flagg. His presence potentially solves many of the problems that the Dončić trade created.

Where do Mavericks go from here? Cooper Flagg forces Dallas to embrace a future the team previously dismissed

Sam Quinn

Fans viewed Dončić as a successor to Dirk Nowitzki as a homegrown superstar that could become an icon in Dallas for multiple decades. They were never going to view the older Davis, who has already won a championship with the Lakers, in the same way, and many of those fans abandoned the team as a result. In Flagg, though, they have a second chance at that Nowitzki successor, someone the fans can watch grow into a superstar for his entire career.

Dallas needed this sort of lottery luck now because it doesn't control its first-round picks between 2027 and 2030. This year and next were the only real chances the Mavericks were going to have at getting a top prospect, but because Harrison traded Dončić for a veteran in Davis instead of youth and picks, they were unlikely to get one. They beat the odds for Flagg, and now, the organization has wisely decided to embrace its fortune. There are still a number of questions in Dallas. We don't know how exactly Flagg fits in and who he'll play with, but we do know now that he will at least be on the team. There isn't a second controversial blockbuster incoming.