Cooper Flagg & The Mavs' New Era

How do you know when a player truly has “it”?
That’s the question that drives this electric episode of The Ben and Skin Show, as Ben Rogers, Jeff “Skin” Wade, Kevin “KT” Turner, and Krystina Ray unpack the Mavericks’ draft night triumph and the arrival of Cooper Flagg—a player already being whispered about in the same breath as Luka and Dirk.From robotic interviews to alpha energy without the noise, the crew dives deep into what makes Flagg so compelling. Is he too quiet? Too young? Or is that exactly what makes him the perfect modern superstar? The guys explore his mentality, his reclassification, and why being boring might be the best thing for the Mavericks.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Now around the sports KT quints as all the sports.
Did you guys watched the draft last night? I missed it.
That was pretty interesting stuff. When we got Cooper Flag,
that was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I remember that dude, and the more I learned about him,
the more excited I am about the impact he's going
to have on the Mavericks, But just getting to know
his personality and vibe a little bit through a few
more interviews, he seems like a robot, which is awesome.
I don't want the big personality guy, that's great. I
want the guy who's a cold blooded killer, constantly working

(00:43):
on his game, looking at game tape or whatever. I
don't want the guy he's not active on social media,
his family's very involved in his life. He's not going
to be a great interview. That's fine. I don't need
him to be that. I just wanted to be a
cold blooded killer on the court.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
You know who else is not going to be a
good interview?

Speaker 1 (00:59):
An eighteen year old?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, Like that's the thing that I was thinking about
a lot yesterdays, Like this person is so young. You
know the reason he is in this draft is because
he reclassified because he was so much better than everyone
else his age. He could go be the number one,
pick a great up and so he reclassified. So not
only is his personality more you know, suited towards you know,

(01:26):
just being all about the sport and letting everything else
kind of fall into place or whatever, he's still a
very very young person. Yeah, and you know, I think
a lot of times fame kind of makes people look
at you differently and make you think they're older than
they are, you know, part of Dirk. It took forever
for Dirk to be a good interview. Well, one, he

(01:48):
was a little introverted to he was nineteen when he
came here. Three spoke English as a second language, like
same with Luca. I bet Luca will one day be
a better interview than he is now. I don't think
he'll be a lot better, but he's still speaking English
as a third or fourth language, right, And Dirk's interviews
became a lot more interesting when you realized he was
one of the greatest players on Earth, you know what

(02:10):
I mean. That helped too, And so you know, his
Cooper Flags interviews will get better over time. And if
you were to interview you know, my child who's seventeen,
I don't know that he'd make any eye contact. He'd
stare at the ground and he'd mumble so much you
thought he was, you know, not even making true real sentences, right,
And also think about just being aware enough to know,

(02:35):
oh the whole world's watching me, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, I mean I love the Ted Emerck story he
told where you know, just that you know, he got
to see him up close and watch him play a
bunch and he's like, he is a killer. Yeah, He's
an absolute killer. And asking if the McDonald's game was
going to be fun or just like an all star
game in the NBA, he's like, oh, no, it's going
to be a game. Yeah, like that type of alpha mentality,
but it's not loud look at me on the alpha.

(02:58):
It's just I'm gonna do alpha thing.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
I didn't want to bring this up on the broadcast
just because I didn't want to bring up Lucas stuff, right,
like it doesn't help with the moving on process. And
I thought, like, there I saw Devin Harris quote. Devin
Harris was in New York and he referenced something he
said not to take anything away from seventy seven, so

(03:22):
he didn't say his name, but He also wanted to reference, Hey,
just because I'm saying great things about Cooper Flagg doesn't
mean I'm disparaging, you know, a guy that I played
with that I think is incredible. But one of the
things that was interesting was we had Mark Acguire on
last night and Guire was talking about you know, oh, yeah,
this guy's the real deal, you know, and he was,

(03:43):
you know, effusive with his praise, and so I was like,
when you, guys, you know, Mark Aguire is one of
the greatest players of his generation. He was a number
one pick. When you guys watched these younger guys, how
long does it take you to figure out, Oh, this
person has it, he's like you within the course of
watching him once, you know. And it reminded me of

(04:05):
the first time I saw Luca play in person with Harp,
and it was against that Yao Ming's Chinese team that
came here for a pre for a preseason game, remember
that the Shanghai Sharks, I believe, and Harp was watching
him warm up and he was like, that guy is special.

(04:26):
Like we hadn't the Luca mythology hadn't started yet. Okay,
it was again, this is his very first preseason game
in a Maverick uniform. So we're not sitting here going
this is a generational player, Like, man, I think this
guy can be really really great. I don't know if
he's athletic enough. Blah blah blah, and Harp is sitting
there going nah, that guy's it, like he knew, you know,

(04:50):
we just we we throw around the phrase game recognized
game and that's the way Nick van Xel was talking
about him. That's the way Mark Guire was like all
those guys that are true it and have been in
Like when we had Nick van Exel on last night.
He was only a Maverick for like a season and
a half and the impact he had in that amount
of time, Oh my god, it's awesome. He talked about

(05:13):
the Sacramento series and he talked about they got punked
in game one and after the game they were interviewing
him and he was like, I respect my opponent, but
fam and it became a big thing, and he said
the next day at practice he called out Finley, Nash
and Dirk and was like, why are y'all acting like

(05:34):
they're better than us? And then they went out there
and tanned their hides and then in game three, Van
Exell had I mean I was at that game. That's
the loudest building I've ever been in, and Van Xell
dropped forty on the road.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I mean, just awesome. Sorry, speaking of loud and being
in a stadium, there were some fire Nico chants last night,
and there has been some Nico quotes that are making
the round. So let's take a listen to that Don't
Go Anywhere. That's coming up in just over three minutes
right here and around the sports on the Eagle