Over a month after Marc Tatum flipped over the Mavericks card, it's still surreal to think Dallas won the NBA Draft lottery and has the right to take Duke phenom Cooper Flagg. The franchise that disregarded its young cornerstone in Luka Doncic was somehow rewarded by the ping pong balls bouncing their way.
For as much flak as Mavs' GM Nico Harrison has taken for the Doncic deal and not maximizing that return, he's now in a prime position to take the team's star of the future and create a championship foundation.
But what if Harrison wants to hone in on this current window, and rather than develop Flagg, tries to use that asset to make a "win now" move?
ESPN senior writer Andre Snellings pitched a way to get one of the league's premier faces of the game in exchange for the Blue Devil superstar.
In the mock trade, the Mavericks landed Devin Booker and some unfavorable pick swaps in exchange for Flagg, getting off Klay Thompson's contract and PJ Washington, Naji Marshall, and Caleb Martin as cap filler.
If you think that's a baffling proposal for Dallas, it's because it is.
Booker is a perennial top-20 player in the NBA who was fairly recently the best player on a Finals team. He's a lethal scoring hub who made tremendous strides as a creator.
But Booker is creeping up on 30 and is coming off a campaign where his numbers took a slight dip across the board.
Flagg has an unlimited ceiling and just showed rapid progression during one year in Durham as someone who was supposed to be a senior in high school.
Unless it was for Jokic or SGA, any proposed Flagg deal should lead to an immediate "no."