Tim Legler On Cooper Flagg, Klay Thompson, & Dallas Mavericks' SLOW Start

How do the Mavericks find a way to get

this ugly start turned around to get

things moving in the right direction?

We'll have that conversation right now

with our All City teammate, of course,

co-host of the AllNBA podcast with his

guy, Adam Mahes, and of course, ESPN

game and in studio analyst and former

Dallas Maverick legend. He is, of

course, Tim Leggler. Tim, what's going

on?

>> What's happening, man? Look, if you're

asking me to solve that riddle, I don't

know we got time for that today, man.

All right. Because I don't know I don't

know that uh I have the easy solution

that I'm sure Mavericks fans are looking

for right now.

>> Well, we'll try to find some because

there's a lot of problems that this team

is dealing with. A team, Tim, that's

second to last in offensive rating so

far this year. Dead last in scoring per

game as a team. They are fourth in

defensive rating. But let's just start

with a 30,000 foot view. From what you

have seen through the first couple of

weeks of this season for this team, what

is your overall assessment and what's

gone wrong for this team, particularly

offensively?

>> Well, I mean, it comes down to this. In

this league offensively, you need at

least one, if not two focal points

offensively, right? Guys that can

manipulate defenses, that can create um

situations where you have to communicate

defensively, run extra traffic at guys.

It it creates all of the flow

offensively in this league. If you don't

have that, then you better be able to to

turn teams over constantly and play in

the open floor all night long. If you if

you're not going to have a focal point

in the half court, they don't have a

focal point in the half court. And

they're they're a good defensive team.

And eventually they they could be, I

think, you know, one of the top

defensive teams in the league if they

get all their pieces. This is different.

They're an anemic three-point shooting

team. And one of the reasons is because

you don't have a focal point

offensively and a guy that can

manipulate multiple defenders. The

three-point shots you get are not going

to be the quality of three-point looks

that most teams in this league get that

have guys like that. So you look up and

they're averaging less than 10 makes a

game. Dead last in the NBA, second to

last in percentage. Like you look at

teams in this league that are low volume

three-point shooting teams. Like take a

for instance a team like Denver. They've

been a low volume three-point shooting

team for years, but they're one of the

top percentage teams. So So you you can

you can survive those nights when you

know teams are going to take 18 20 more

threes than you because you're shooting

a good enough percentage to keep you at

least within striking distance in the

three-point battle. when you are

shooting

30% from the three, okay, and you're

also low volume, you're not surviving

that. Now, you're, you know, you you're

literally so outgunned and digging out

of such a deficit in terms of firepower

on just shooting alone. It doesn't

matter how good your defense is, you

can't make up that entire deficit. So,

for me, when I watch them, that's really

what it is. You're not watching a team

that you they come up the floor and

you're thinking they're capable of

stringing together a 30 35 point quarter

because they've got three-point shooting

enough of it on the floor. It's like a

relief when they score sometimes when

you watch this team. And that's not

going to change anytime soon. If you

don't have Anthony Davis, you don't have

Kyrie Irving. This is what they have. So

short of some sort of massive trade

taking place where you can figure out a

way to get one of those guys in, this is

what it's going to look like, man. ugly

offense defense hopefully keep you in

games and then you got to try to execute

down the stretch and steal one when you

can.

>> And unfortunately that's been a problem

for this team. They haven't been good in

clutch games so far this year that not

getting enough three-point shooting. And

part of that we hope we were going to

get was from Klay Thompson who has

struggled out the gate so far this year

has now been coming off the bench in his

last couple of games as well. What has

been gone what has gone wrong for Klay

Thompson in this start for him this

season in your mind?

>> Well, look, I look at a guy like Klay

and you know, you look up, he's 35 years

old. He's got a lot of miles on those

legs, man. It's a lot of jumps, right? A

lot of up and downs and he had major

injuries. So, you you know, it's just

the accumulation of that. At some point,

it's going to be more difficult. You

don't have the same lift. When you don't

have the same lift, and he was never a

guy that was like jumping, you know, 35

inches off the ground on his jump shot.

He doesn't jump a lot, but jump more

than he's comfortable jumping. Now, what

happens is the timing of your release is

different when you're not jumping the

same on every jump. And I think that's

where Clay probably finds himself now.

It doesn't feel as automatic to him. So,

as a result, it's not automatic. And

again, even the volume though, he's only

taking eight and a half shots a game.

Like for a high volume shooter, that's

nothing. you know that that's not

stringing them together where you can

find a rhythm. They've now decided,

okay, let's bring him off the bench.

Maybe that's the solution, but there's

an adjustment to be made for Klay

Thompson. So, if you're an older guard,

like I talked about the mileage on the

legs, and now, okay, you go through

pregame warm-ups, you do your routine,

you got a nice sweat going, you, you

know, you come right out of layup lines

into starting lineup introductions and

boom, you're on the court, and maybe you

get a shot up the next in the first few

minutes game, which you usually do. now.

Okay, warm-ups. And

in real time, that might be 15, 20

minutes to go sit down. Now, I don't

know that necessarily that's going to be

easier for Klay Thompson to find his

rhythm, but they felt like it was

struggling to such an extent they had to

try something a little bit different for

him. I'm just saying I don't know that

that's going to be the solution. I

understand if you want to play in fewer

minutes, but I think to go sit down

after you've warmed up when you're a

guard north of 35 years old or a big man

either. It's harder than to start out

like getting into a rhythm when you step

onto the floor and it feels more

immediate like I got to get it going now

because my minutes are shrunk anyway.

When you start the game, you can at

least there's a little bit of a flow to

it for all the starters. I think this

might be a difficult adjustment for

Clay, but I hope I'm wrong. I hope it

works out for him because, you know,

maybe that is the role 20 24 minutes a

night at most. I just think it's going

to be hard finding that rhythm

>> and the starting lineup changes that

we've seen with Klay Thompson going to

the benchm inserted to the starting

lineup. We started this season, Tim,

with the whole point flag experiment.

Cooper flag, the rookie out of Duke in

his first couple of game, first few

weeks I should say, you know, mostly

playing at the point guard starting at

the point guard position. What have your

been your evaluations of Cooper Flag

through his first couple of weeks of the

season? And what did you think about the

idea of starting him on the ball as the

primary facilitator and the guy

initiating the offense and what that

started to turn out offensively for this

team?

>> Yeah, I I didn't like it initially

because I just felt like as a as a

high-profile player, as the youngest

player in the NBA at 18 years old, you

got enough mentally that you're kind of

dealing with. There's a lot of pressure,

a lot of scrutiny. He's got a lot of

confidence in himself. some, you know,

I'm sure, you know, I have no doubt that

Cooper Flag is going to be a really high

level player in this league. I think

he's a can't miss prospect. I do believe

that. But I think initially

everything is happening

so fast and there's so much pressure and

so many eyeballs on you when you also

then take a guy and play him kind of out

of his normal comfort zone as a player

and let's add this to your level of

responsibility. Can you also bring the

ball up the floor and advance it against

really good on ball defenders? Can you

can you make the game easier for other

people on the team? Because that's part

of the responsibility as the primary

ball handler. Can you create and

manipulate defenses in a way that makes

the game easier for other guys? It's

just a whole another level of

responsibility for a young guy just

trying to get his feet wet and just go

have some success early and get a taste

of what NBA travel is like and the the

the grind of an NBA season and 82 of

these things are going to come at you.

not 35. I think that adding that to his

plate, I wouldn't have done it, but they

saw something in him that thought this

was the best way to operate. I just

think he's probably overthinking the

game. That to me is probably what's

going through Cooper Flag's head right

now rather than, man, just go play

basketball, run the wing, be a forward

that can handle the ball rather than our

primary playmaker. I think those are two

entirely different things. And I think

he's as a result, it's a little bit of

paralysis by analysis with him. There's

too much going on up here that's

affecting some of his muscle memory and

he's having some some struggles with his

efficiency and his shooting is going to

be an issue. I said it all along.

Everybody knows that. I said it from the

very beginning. Saw him last summer in

Vegas. Had great look at that thing and

I said, you know, his mechanics are not

going to lend itself to a lot of success

from deep early. It's just not. He's 27%

from the three-point line. Not shocked

by that at all. It'll improve over the

course of the first few years of his

career. But right now that shot making

from the perimeter is going to be a

little bit of a slog for him. So we're

going to judge him on that. It's going

to be difficult I think for him to be

efficient right now without more help

offensively.

>> Flag saying after a recent loss that

this is the most he's lost ever when it

comes to the way that the team has

performed so far this year. So

overcoming not only what's happening on

the floor, but psychologically dealing

with what has been a bad situation to

start off with. Which gets me to this.

The GM of this team is embattled right

now of course to Nico Harrison and

obviously the heat has been turned up

quite a bit due to this difficult start

that the Mavericks are on. From the

outside looking in, what advice would

you give to how this thing could be

handled moving forward given what's on

this roster and trying to depend on the

health or lack thereof of Anthony Davis,

Dererick Lively, and others to try to

get this thing moving in the right

direction here.

>> Man, I you know, look,

I don't have an answer to it because it

really does revolve around your best

players being available. I mean, that's

that's what the whole thing was

predicated on making the move in the

first place. you're expect they expected

to have a healthy Anthony Davis and look

you know a lot of us that have covered

Anthony Davis his whole career know that

that's you know a dicey prospect

throughout his career and he had been

better about it toward the end of his

time in LA playing through some stuff

and being more available and you could

see the talent is there so that to me is

really what all of this is predicated

upon. You didn't expect Kyrie Irving to

to get hurt this significantly at the

end of the year. You didn't expect

Anthony Davis to go down again here at

the beginning of the year. You're

talking about two guys that are big

needle movers offensively for your team

in a lot of ways. It almost has to work

with them because this is the path

you've chosen. And I said this at the

time of the trade ultimately

like I I personally don't think you can

even judge this by what Dallas does

going forward. I said it if they win a

championship even Dallas. I still don't

think that validates the trade because

for me I could say well yeah but maybe

they would have won it with Luca too. So

you'll never know that but in the

meantime you just gave away a guy that's

one of the best players in this league

at 25 years old and he's going to go

have probably a decade of success in Los

Angeles. That that to me was a that's

why I didn't I couldn't justify that

this whole thing is going to be judged

by what Luca does in LA. that this

entire trade. But in the meantime, the

only way you can at least turn the heat

down on the conversation is to have your

best guys be available. And obviously,

we don't know when we're going to see

Kyrie.

You know, Anthony Davis, you hope you

get back sooner than later and you can

start to have that big- time offensive

talent you need at the top of a roster.

And then the defense can help you win

games. Right now, that defense isn't

going to be good enough to win games cuz

their offense is not going to be able to

carry their share of the burden.

>> Things are getting turned up in the

wrong way here in Dallas. The Mavericks

got to find a way to figure it out. We

appreciate our guy Tim Lego trying to

provide some answers for us here at DLS

Mavs. Tim, as always, we appreciate the

time. Look forward to your coverage all

season long with ESPN and of course on

the AllNBA podcast. What you got, Adam?

Appreciate the time as always, Tim.

Thank you.

>> You got of course. Talk to you soon.