The best players make basketball look simple. The effect is mostly illusory, a byproduct of their size and skill warping a complex game, though there’s something to the idea. In essence what a star does is make the game easier for their team and more difficult for the opponent. It’s not rendering anything simple exactly, more like adding to or subtracting from the bevy of available options for, respectively, one’s team or one’s opponents. You can only do simple stuff if you have the best players.
Cooper Flagg is one such player. Watching him dominate the Indiana Pacers Monday night, I was struck by how simple it all looked for the 19-year-old. With his Dallas Mavericks trailing by 10 coming out of halftime, Flagg made a point of taking and nailing three straight midrange jumpers, shots he can get to anytime he wants. Three times the cockroach (complimentary) Pacers dodged getting squished and made their way back into one-possession range; with the game on the line, Flagg calmly got the rock and went to work.
Flagg wound up with 43 points on 25 shots in 39 minutes, 10 rebounds, six assists, and four stocks, all on the second night of a back-to-back. He played the entire fourth quarter and hit all eight of his free throws. He turns 20 next week, and is at most a few months older than the youngest draftees in the rookie class after his. He’s taken to munching PB-and-Js at all times because he’s still a young growing boy. Something interesting is happening in Dallas, somehow, which all comes down to Flagg’s undeniable superstardom.