The Dallas Mavericks have shockingly been awarded the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery.
Read more: Mavericks Wins Cooper Flagg Sweepstakes, Will Pick First Overall in 2025 NBA Draft
The Mavericks, who had just a 1.8 percent chance to get the No. 1 overall pick, have won the lottery and the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes in a dramatic turn of events.
The moment was rewarding for the entire Mavericks organization, but it’s difficult to imagine anyone feeling better in the moment than Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison.
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Harrison has been under major fire since the trade deadline, when he traded away superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in one of the most shocking trades in NBA history.
Doncic was the heart and soul of the Mavericks team, and led them to an NBA Finals appearance just a year ago.
However, Harrison and the Mavericks organization felt that Doncic wasn’t the right man to lead their team, so they sent him to Los Angeles in a package centered around Anthony Davis.
“There’s no regrets on the trade,” Harrison said in April in his first major public comments on the deal. “Part of my job is to do the best thing for the Mavericks, not only today, but also in the future, and some of the decisions I’m going to make are going to be unpopular. That’s my job, and I have to stand by it.”
The Mavericks felt like they had a better chance to contend this year after the trade, but Davis struggled with injuries and point guard Kyrie Irving suffered a season-ending torn ACL. The Mavericks still made the NBA Play-In Tournament, but lost to the Memphis Grizzlies, 120-106, ending their season.
Now, the Mavericks lucked into the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, where they’ll have the opportunity to select Duke star Cooper Flagg.
Flagg is considered one of the best prospects in recent memory, as he’s coming off a freshman year at Duke in which he averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assist, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks per game while shooting 48.1 percent from the field, 38.5 percent from deep and 84 percent from the free throw line.
He was named the AP Player of the Year and won both the Wooden Award and Naismith Award.
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