November 18th - In today's NBA regular season game, the Dallas Mavericks lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves 96-120 on the road.
American media outlet ClutchPoints discussed Cooper Flagg's positional change on Instagram: The Dallas Mavericks have realized that Cooper Flagg is not a point guard.
With Kyrie Irving sidelined and the team not fully trusting D'Angelo Russell as the starting point guard, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd tried having Flagg as the primary ball-handler in the first seven games of the season, but with limited success—Flagg displayed inconsistent rhythm, discomfort as the primary ball-handler, poor decision-making, and mediocre defensive performance.
The 2025 first overall pick has had a poor start to his NBA career, and he himself has admitted that he is not yet ready to assume the role of point guard. Kidd finally moved Flagg to small forward for the first time in Game 8 against the Pelicans on November 5th, 2025.
Since Russell's return to point guard, Flagger has been a revelation: elite-level off-ball movement, smarter cuts, more confident shooting, more aggressive drives to the basket, and a freer overall game.
While Flagger still occasionally handles the ball, both the data and visual observation suggest that the 'Point Guard Flagger' experiment won't be restarted; small forward is where he'll shine in the NBA in the future.
According to statistics: Cooper Flagger's scoring increased from 13.6 points to 17.6 points after playing small forward; his field goal percentage also improved significantly to 50.0%; and his steals per game increased by one.
