Cooper Flagg's trainer, Matt MacKenzie, revealed how matching up against Bronny James in the 2025 NBA Summer League helped him. After playing two Summer League games, the Dallas Mavericks are benching Flagg for the remainder of the league.
Flagg showcased a mix of his strengths and weaknesses in the two games. In his last game against the San Antonio Spurs, Flagg scored 31 points, proving that he'll be an important scoring asset for the Mavericks come the 2025-26 season.
Flagg's trainer, Matt MacKenzie, explained how his experience against Bronny James and the LA Lakers helped him overcome his struggles leading to his second game against the Spurs.
"I think for (Cooper Flagg), he wants to continue to learn and continue to get better and he doesn't necessarily want to be shut down," MacKenzie told Sportskeeda.
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Against the LA Lakers in his first Summer League game, Flagg struggled despite a two-point victory over the Purple and Gold. The number one pick admitted he had one of the worst games of his career playing against the Lakers. Flagg only scored 10 points and shot 23.8% from the field.
One of the Lakers players who locked Flagg down was Bronny James. It was an exciting matchup between the two stars as James seemed to have Flagg's number defensively. There was even one sequence when Bronny nearly poked the ball free from Flagg before getting called for a reach-in foul.
Cooper Flagg's trainer opened up about how Mavericks rookie felt playing against Lakers
While being the number one pick of your NBA draft class is a huge honor, there's a lot of pressure and expectations that come with it. That might've been the case with Cooper Flagg when he went up against the LA Lakers in his Summer League debut game.
Flagg looked uptight in his opening game as he obviously went on the hardwood to prove why he deserved to be the number one pick. This led to a poor performance, making only five out of 21 shot attempts. Flagg even missed all five of his 3-point attempts.
Matt MacKenzie explained what went through Flagg's head that night and how they addressed the issue:
“He beat himself up after the night against LA,” MacKenzie told Sportskeeda. “He obviously wasn’t happy with the way he shot the ball. He felt like he got sped up. He felt like he rushed a lot of his shots."
"So we had a conversation just about how we needed him to settle in and we needed him to understand that he has the ability to impact the game in so many different ways," MacKenzie continued. "When he doesn’t have his shot falling, he has to make sure that he’s pursuing rebounds and make sure that he’s doing all the little things out there to get himself going. And then the shots will fall.”
Cooper Flagg still has a lot of maturing to do on the hardwood. However, it's safe to say that he's in good hands. Moving forward, he'll have future Hall of Famers such as Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson mentoring him.
