Locked On Mavericks - Daily Podcast On The Dallas Mavs
Oct 21, 2026 · 49 min · 28 segments
The Dallas Mavericks fan base brought the questions at a live Mavs Q&A, from whether Kyrie Irving or Cooper Flagg should take the final shot to what Cooper Flagg’s defensive ceiling looks like in the…
Isaac HarrisHost
Nick AngstadtHostSo the conversation with Cooper Flagg coming into his draft was his motor and his defense.
I feel like over the last year, since he took a lot of the offensive load, the defense was not talked about as much.
But I'm curious.
I feel like we didn't see that... extra motor this first season? I don't know about you guys' opinion, but I feel like there was another level that he could have hit.
Obviously, he took a lot of the offensive load, but what do you think his ceiling is with that motor? What kind of player comparable or is he comparable to or defensively? What do you think that ceiling is defensively?

don't watch the don't watch his defensive tape from the hawks game the other night

just delete that from the archives and then just remember at our media day interviews what max pj and gafford like all said in their own kind of little ways that last year defense was very hard for this team because you know you're not very good you're losing so many games and defense is so much about effort intentionality attention to detail and all that and what's hard when you're and you don't believe in what you're doing, like you don't believe in the team that you're actually playing with, is defense.

A Jalen Brown-level defender is definitely there for him where you're like, all right, he can defend the best player on another team.

But I think the offensive load will always be so great that you don't want him to give all that he can on defense.

Yeah, I mean, I would probably say more like a Jason Tatum route of – Yeah, I hesitate to do, like, the Kawhi thing.

Yeah, but like a Jason Tatum type to where, like, I think in a perfect world, I mean, they've said pretty publicly, too, like, we don't want Cooper to be our point of attack guy.

I would even say, like, you wouldn't ideally want Cooper to be, like, your main lockdown wing defender too.

So can he be your secondary wing defender to where that – what's that in between Kyrie and Cooper? I mean, I think they want Richa Shea to be that, where Richa Shea takes the primary wing guy and then Cooper can be that secondary wing defender.

But we'll see what the long-term version of, like, what that Richa Shea spot is.
So the conversation with Cooper Flagg coming into his draft was his motor and his defense.
I feel like over the last year, since he took a lot of the offensive load, the defense was not talked about as much.
But I'm curious.
I feel like we didn't see that... extra motor this first season? I don't know about you guys' opinion, but I feel like there was another level that he could have hit.
Obviously, he took a lot of the offensive load, but what do you think his ceiling is with that motor? What kind of player comparable or is he comparable to or defensively? What do you think that ceiling is defensively?

don't watch the don't watch his defensive tape from the hawks game the other night

just delete that from the archives and then just remember at our media day interviews what max pj and gafford like all said in their own kind of little ways that last year defense was very hard for this team because you know you're not very good you're losing so many games and defense is so much about effort intentionality attention to detail and all that and what's hard when you're and you don't believe in what you're doing, like you don't believe in the team that you're actually playing with, is defense.

A Jalen Brown-level defender is definitely there for him where you're like, all right, he can defend the best player on another team.

But I think the offensive load will always be so great that you don't want him to give all that he can on defense.

Yeah, I mean, I would probably say more like a Jason Tatum route of – Yeah, I hesitate to do, like, the Kawhi thing.

Yeah, but like a Jason Tatum type to where, like, I think in a perfect world, I mean, they've said pretty publicly, too, like, we don't want Cooper to be our point of attack guy.

I would even say, like, you wouldn't ideally want Cooper to be, like, your main lockdown wing defender too.

So can he be your secondary wing defender to where that – what's that in between Kyrie and Cooper? I mean, I think they want Richa Shea to be that, where Richa Shea takes the primary wing guy and then Cooper can be that secondary wing defender.

But we'll see what the long-term version of, like, what that Richa Shea spot is.
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