After 20 games, the Dallas Mavericks (5-15) are enduring the franchise’s worst start since the 2017-18 season, the year before they drafted Luka Doncic. The Mavericks played decently in their 129-119 loss to the Lakers, but the combined 73 points from Austin Reaves (38) and Luka Doncic (35) overshadowed Anthony Davis’s first return to Los Angeles since the trade and highlighted the huge performance disparity between the two teams this year.
While the Lakers are second in the West and Luka leads the NBA in points per game (just as he did in his last full season with Dallas), the Mavericks are second-to-last in the conference. The only bright spot for Dallas is the progress of first-overall pick Cooper Flagg, who is rapidly realizing the massive shoes he has to fill in replacing Doncic.
Flagg Edges Out LeBron 22 Year Old Record
Flagg was far from having his best scoring game, finishing as the team’s fourth-highest scorer with only 13 points. This was, however, his 18th game out of 19 with 10 or more points. Critically, he also added seven rebounds and a team-high 11 assists.
Those 11 assists served to break a 22-year-old record held by LeBron James. Flagg became the youngest player in NBA history to record 10-plus assists in a game, beating James by just 12 days. Flagg achieved the feat at 18 years and 343 days old, whereas LeBron was 18 years and 355 days old when he set the record back in 2003 in a win against the Bulls. It is a remarkable coincidence that Flagg broke James’s record in a game played directly against him.
In his rookie season, LeBron finished with six games of 10 or more assists. With Anthony Davis’s return to the lineup, Flagg is likely to rack up a few more assists as he will have less pressure to be the primary scorer for the team. Furthermore, with Kyrie Irving scheduled to return in January 2026, Flagg has a great opportunity to surpass James’s rookie record for the most games with 10 or more assists in a season.
With Davis’s Return is Now or Never for the Mavs
The hope is that Irving’s eventual return will not be too late to save the Mavericks’ season. While the Lakers are a championship contender this year, the Mavericks’ performance has been severely disappointing, as their record clearly shows. Their schedule does not get any easier, with a tough run of games ahead.
Their next game is against another team performing surprisingly poorly, the Clippers (5-14). After that, they face the Nuggets, Heat, Thunder, and Rockets all in the span of the next week. It will be a critical test to see how the Mavericks respond with Anthony Davis regaining his rhythm and providing much-needed confidence and support to Cooper Flagg.
Read the full article here
