Brian Windhorst Calls Out NBA's Major Cooper Flagg Mavs Mistake

Dallas has spent most of the last decade with a top-tier player on its roster and most of the last decade getting treated like an afterthought. Even at the height of the Luka Doncic era, with a Finals appearance on the résumé, the national conversation rarely centered here. The games went to Boston, Los Angeles and Golden State. The Mavericks were something people discovered in the playoffs.

That pattern is repeating itself and Brian Windhorst thinks the league is making a mistake.

Speaking with DLLS Sports' Kevin Gray in Macao on Thursday, the ESPN insider made clear where he stands on Cooper Flagg.

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"I am extraordinarily bullish on his future and I am really excited about his present," Windhorst said.

Then he explained why most people are not paying attention yet and the reasoning had nothing to do with Flagg's ability.

"Because of the dynamics of the league, because LeBron is in Philadelphia and Giannis is in Miami and the Knicks are the champions and the Celtics are the Celtics and Wembanyama is Wembanyama and Luka is now separate from LeBron. The Mavericks are not on national TV that much. It's a good and a bad thing."

That is an accurate read on the landscape. Dallas has 29 nationally televised games this season, with eight on ESPN or ABC. For a team with the reigning Rookie of the Year and a returning Kyrie Irving, that is a modest allotment. It also reflects how networks prioritized their windows after a 26-win season.

Windhorst did not dance around what that means.

"Number one, it means Cooper is not getting the attention he deserves. So, I don't have to tell your listeners or your viewers this, but grab onto Cooper. Get in early. Be there, because the league is overlooking him a little bit right now."

He was also careful to distinguish between being overlooked and being doubted.

"Again, it's not like they're looking at him and going, eh, he's not that good. There's a set of circumstances that is depressing him a little bit. Mistake."

That distinction matters. Nobody around the league questions what Flagg is. He led Dallas in points, rebounds, assists and steals as a rookie and became the first player since Michael Jordan in 1984-85 to pace his team in all four categories. The issue is competition for airtime in a league stacked with established stars in major markets.

Windhorst, who works for the network making these decisions, acknowledged the logic behind them.

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"And look, ESPN, we're going to put LeBron and Luka on. We're going to put Giannis on. We're going to put Victor on. We're going to put Durant on. We're going to put Anthony Edwards on."

Then he delivered the line that will stick with Mavericks fans.

"But I'm telling you, if Cooper was the stock, I would buy it all. That's how I feel about it."

The investment framing is apt because that is essentially what Windhorst is describing. Flagg is undervalued relative to what he will eventually be worth and the gap between perception and reality tends to close quickly once production forces the issue.

That process might not take long. Flagg turns 20 in December, spent the offseason specifically addressing his outside shot and now has a healthy Irving beside him rather than carrying an offense alone as a teenager. If the leap arrives this season, the scheduling decisions made in August will look foolish by February.