Now that he’s done with NBA Summer League, Cooper Flagg has a few months to prepare for training camp with the Dallas Mavericks.
And Flagg will be doing some of that prep work here in his home state of Maine, according to Matt MacKenzie, his longtime player development coach.
While Flagg and MacKenzie spent time in Los Angeles getting ready for both the NBA draft combine and Summer League action, MacKenzie said their training will now be split between Dallas and Maine until Flagg heads to Dallas full time toward the end of August.
NBA training camps get underway in September.
“We’re pretty much done with LA,” MacKenzie said. “However, we may go back and visit there for short periods of time during the offseason. But at this point now it’s really going to be between Dallas and Maine for the foreseeable future.”
Together with twin brother, Ace Flagg, the 6-foot-9 NBA rookie will also be hosting an August 9-10 youth basketball camp at the University of Maine in Orono. Ace Flagg will launch his college career at UMaine this season.
MacKenzie owns Eastern Maine Sports Academy and Results Basketball in neighboring Veazie. He has worked with both Cooper and Ace Flagg for years.
“At this point, in terms of a training perspective, we’re really just focusing on now gearing up for the upcoming season,” MacKenzie said of Cooper Flagg.
While the crux of MacKenzie’s continued work with Flagg this summer will be “helping him just continue to be the most complete player he can be,” the longtime trainer said ball handling skills will get a particular emphasis.
Dallas coach Jason Kidd said at Flagg’s introductory press conference with the team that he wants to put the ball in Flagg’s hands and have the first year forward run the offense.
“Given that he will have ball handling responsibilities — he’s going to be expected to run some reps at point — we will definitely be tying in a lot of ball handling, a lot of full court transition handle work where he’s having to make quick decisions in the open court,” MacKenzie said.
That will also include work on making pick-and-roll reads to prepare for an NBA style of play that features a lot of picks, isolation and drive-and-kick action.
“We spend a lot of time on working our skills through those different actions, and that’s something that we’ll continue to do as he gets ready for the season,” MacKenzie said.
Flagg had an early chance to showcase his skills during Summer League action in Las Vegas, playing in two games for the Mavericks. He had a slow night shooting in the first game against the Los Angeles Lakers but helped win the game with his defense and passing, and followed that up with 31 points in 31 minutes against the San Antonio Spurs in game two.
“I think it was a great opportunity for him to just get on the floor and compete with a new group of guys, and to be able to play for a different coaching staff,” MacKenzie said about Flagg’s Summer League performance. “And really just kind of work the cobwebs off, because he hasn’t played in a live game since March Madness. So I think that you can take away some really positive things from his play.”
Those positives included handling the ball well, logging heavy minutes against full court pressure, and “on point” decision making, according to MacKenzie.
“Obviously he didn’t shoot the ball as well as he would have liked, especially in game one, but I felt like he bounced back well in game two and really did a great job attacking his spots, staying aggressive on the offensive end, and then showing his defensive versatility on the other side of the ball,” MacKenzie added.
The longtime coach said that Flagg “understands that he’s going to have shooting nights where maybe he’s not as hot, he’s not as efficient as he’d like to be,” but that he tends to do a good job of finding other ways to impact the game on those nights. That’s exactly what Flagg did in his Summer League debut, providing a pivotal block and an assist on what ended up being the game-winning sequence down the stretch for Dallas.
“That’s typical Cooper,” MacKenzie said.
MacKenzie thought that Flagg found a better rhythm in game two of Summer League.
“Certainly he’s adjusting to what is expected of him and some of the different shots that he’s gonna have to take, and I thought he did a good job showing that growth even just over the course of the week,” MacKenzie said. “Knowing how he’s going to be used for the most part, and some of the different actions that he’s gonna be playing through with Dallas — that can help us as we train and really ramp things up here ahead of the season.”
Off the court, Flagg could also pick up some additional hardware this week ahead of his first NBA season. Flagg is nominated for two ESPY awards, Best Breakthrough Athlete and Best College Athlete for men’s sports, as part of the annual awards show hosted by ESPN.
Those award winners will be announced Wednesday night at a ceremony in Los Angeles.
