Less than one percent.
That was the probability that the top two picks in the 2025 NBA Draft would belong to the Dallas Mavericks and the San Antonio Spurs.
But that’s the way the draft lottery played out in May, and it earned the two franchises the opportunity to trust their future success to their pick of kids born during George W. Bush’s second presidential administration.
For the Mavericks, it’s not just a miraculous shot at redemption. It’s an escape from humiliation and a chance to win back a fanbase that had almost unanimously claimed betrayal for trading franchise player Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in February, a move that shocked the basketball world. So much so that fans organized a mock funeral outside of the American Airlines Center.
Mavericks’ general manager Nico Harrison later admitted he underestimated the rage that the fanbase would feel over losing Doncic.
And yet, due to sheer dumb luck, it all changed. Cooper Flagg, one of the most hyped NBA prospects since Lebron James, was suddenly in their laps. In the three days after the Mavs were awarded the first pick, they sold $8 million worth of season tickets.
The Spurs, on the other hand, already had their franchise player in Victor Wembanyama. In the two years since drafting him, though, they’ve failed to make the playoffs or even come particularly close. To the basketball world, the second overall pick represented a shot at San Antonio becoming more than just a place where an extremely tall Frenchman lives. Whoever they selected would need to help Wembenyama bring the Spurs back to the glory of the Duncan years.
(Houston was originally supposed to have the number 10 overall pick, but the Rockets traded it three days earlier in a package that netted them Kevin Durant, future Basketball Hall of Famer and current posting Hall of Famer, who will return to the state for the first time since his freshman season at University of Texas.)
It was no secret how the night would start at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. NBA analysts have to refrain from salivating when they talk about Flagg, who played one season at Duke. He does essentially everything on the basketball court. Because he graduated high school a year early, Flagg is only eight days older than Lebron James was when he was drafted.
ESPN sent a camera crew and a seemingly overwhelmed reporter to a packed watch party in Flagg’s hometown of Newport, Maine, and analyst Jay Billas suggested, “If Taylor Swift and Beyonce were walking down the street [in Newport], people would knock them down to get to Cooper.”
It’s safe to say this will not be the case in Texas.
Flagg conducted his post-selection interview flanked by his parents and two brothers. His mother, a standout basketball player at the University of Maine, shot down rumors that she had lost their last game of one-on-one, clarifying that she had called “an extended timeout” and the game never officially concluded.
Next up was the Spurs, who picked Dylan Harper, a left-handed guard and nepo baby (his father, Ron Harper, won five NBA championships and could be seen with a tear rolling down his face while his son was being interviewed). Bilas, the analyst, described Harper as “the best pick-and-roll player in the draft.” The player he will be running pick and rolls with will, of course, be Wembanyama. About an hour later, they would add to their young core with Arizona forward Carter Bryant, who didn’t wear a shirt under his blazer.
The number three overall pick was temporary Waco resident and Baylor freshman VJ Edgecombe, originally from the Bahamas. Tre Johnson, a Dallas native who spent a year at Texas, was taken with the number six pick and possibly made the biggest fashion statement of the night, wearing a suit that included…shorts and knee high socks.
By the end of the night, no basketball had been played, but the basketball axis in Texas had shifted.
In the mid-aughts years of Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, and Tracy McGrady, it was all but a guarantee that all three Texas teams would perennially be in the NBA Playoffs. Flagg and Harper won’t be able to drink alcohol until 2028, but they’ll be expected to fulfill that prophecy even sooner.
