What Cooper Flagg is still adjusting to before Mavericks preseason debut

The Dallas Mavericks are getting ready for their first preseason game of the 2025-26 season on Monday, October 6th. They also just had training camp in Vancouver last week as they worked to integrate their new offensive system.

Arguably, the most important piece of the puzzle is how they work Cooper Flagg into the starting lineup and how quickly he can get up to speed. As talented as he is, he's still only 18 years old, but it's in the team's best interest to make him as comfortable as possible in this new system.

Marc Stein of "DLLS Mavs" caught up with Flagg after training camp last week, where he admitted that he's still adjusting to the pace of the NBA.

“Obviously, it’s a lot of differences in the spacing, the terminology, the defense,” Flagg said. “So just kind of cleaning up on a bunch of things… getting our set stuff down, our half-court stuff down, our rotations, the way we want to guard, and trying to just establish that identity. I think just getting sped up offensively. I got to be comfortable, be confident. Sometimes I get rushed, so I just have to trust the spacing, trust the coaches, and trust all the work I put in.”

Sep 29, 2025; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg (32) poses for a photo during the Mavericks 2025 media day at the American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

A Revamped Mavericks Offense

Without one of the greatest shot-creators of all time in Luka Doncic, Jason Kidd went to work with his coaching staff this offseason to create an offense that fit the personnel. Part of that will be by using Anthony Davis in a Domantas Sabonis role. With assistant coach Jay Triano coming over from the Sacramento Kings, that makes sense.

Davis isn't as good a passer as Sabonis, but he does offer enough versatility to pull that off. But that's only a small part of the offense.

Cooper Flagg is expected to have the ball in his hands early and often until Kyrie Irving returns from his ACL recovery, but that won't be the only way they initiate offense this year.

"We don’t have a set person we want to bring it up all the time,” Flagg also said. “It’s just moving the ball up the court with a fast pace and then playing through our bigs at the elbows, getting into different split actions, pick-and-rolls. It’s just sharing the load and letting everybody contribute.”

Monday's game will be the first opportunity to test that, even if people like Anthony Davis and Klay Thompson don't play a lot of minutes (if they play at all).

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