Mavs open Cooper Flagg era waiting to see when Kyrie Irving will join No. 1 pick and Anthony Davis

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LAST SEASON: 39-43, lost in West play-in tournament to Memphis with No. 8 seed at stake.

COACH: Jason Kidd (5th season with Mavericks, 179-149; 10th season overall, 362-339).

SEASON OPENER: Oct. 22 vs. San Antonio.

DEPARTURES: G Spencer Dinwiddie, F Olivier-Maxence Prosper.

ADDITIONS: F Cooper Flagg, G D'Angelo Russell.

BetMGM championship odds: 40-1.

The prospects for the first full season without Luka Doncic will depend on how soon Kyrie Irving returns from the ACL injury sustained in March. It figures to be after the calendar turns to 2026. The improbable NBA draft lottery win that landed Flagg changed the outlook considerably. If the player who led Duke to the Final Four in his only season lives up to the hype, the Mavericks should stay afloat in the Western Conference race before Irving returns. The health of oft-injured Anthony Davis, acquired from the Los Angeles Lakers in the widely panned Doncic trade, will have a lot to say about that. A healthy roster that includes Irving, Davis, Flagg and Klay Thompson should be good enough to contend.

The good: General manager Nico Harrison preached “defense wins championships” in trying to justify the Doncic deal from this past February. Dallas could be elite with Davis and Flagg protecting the rim while Thompson will be the primary perimeter defender and P.J. Washington Jr. the most versatile. Assuming Irving returns sometime after the new year, the Mavs will have plenty of offensive firepower as well.

The not-so-good: The Mavericks are playing with fire on the health front. Davis has a long history of not being able to stay in the lineup. He did play a career-high 76 games in his last full season before the Doncic trade. But the groin injury he aggravated in his Dallas debut put him in the all-too-familiar range of 30 games missed. Davis missed at least 20 games in each of five consecutive seasons from 2018-23, with New Orleans and LA. Young center Dereck Lively II has shown a ton of promise, but has been limited to 55 and 36 games in his first two seasons because of injuries.

The trade of a then-25-year-old superstar in his prime sparked talk of Dallas obliterating any hope of returning to the NBA Finals any time soon after Doncic, Irving and company lost to Boston in five games in 2024. The shocking lottery win that landed Flagg changed that conversation right away. Harrison knew his trade tightened the franchise's window for contending. The contracts for Irving and Davis put that window at two seasons for now. Both have player options for 2027-28. How Flagg plays as a rookie will shape the longer-term outlook.

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