Cooper Flagg’s second NBA season began with a line that belongs in the record book, even if the night itself ended in a rough one for Dallas.
In the Mavericks’ 128-110 loss to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night, Flagg scored a team-high 32 points. That made him the most prolific teenager ever in an NBA season opener and the youngest player in league history to top 30 points in the first game of a season.
It’s the kind of milestone Flagg probably won’t dwell on after an 18-point defeat, but it adds another entry to a resume that already started piling up history during his rookie year. He earned NBA Rookie of the Year after a first season in which he averaged 21.2 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game, all while playing as an 18-year-old for his entire debut campaign.
What stood out Wednesday was that the leap may already be showing. Flagg finished with 32 points, five rebounds, three steals and two assists, and even in a loss that size, the numbers around him hinted at how much Dallas leaned on him. The Mavericks lost the 15 minutes he sat by 12 points, and while Flagg’s individual plus-minus was -6, that gap may become a familiar frustration over the course of the season.
There is still reason for optimism around Dallas entering Flagg’s second year. Kyrie Irving is back after missing last season with a torn ACL, and Dusty May arrives as the new head coach after leading Michigan to the National Championship in April. The expectation is that the Mavericks can stay in the Western Conference playoff mix, though this opener offered a reminder that chemistry doesn’t appear overnight.
For now, the game serves as a snapshot of where things stand: one teenager making more NBA history, and a team that still has plenty of work to do. Dallas won’t have long to sit with it, either, with a road game against the Indiana Pacers coming Friday night.
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Boozers impact showed up in the quieter ways that tend to matter when a team is trying to establish itself early. Even with the shooting struggles, he posted a team-best plus-minus of +32, the highest mark in a season opener in franchise history, which is the kind of number that usually says more about how a player fit into the game than how many shots fell. For a debut, it was a reminder that there are nights when the best sign of promise is not the jumper. [Read more 🡒]