Jan 1, 2026; Dallas, Texas, USA; Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd and forward Cooper Flagg (32) look on during the second half against the Philadelphia 76ers at the American Airlines Center. Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
By Sam Neumann on

Cooper Flagg scored 49 points against the Hornets on Thursday. He followed that up with 34 points, 12 rebounds, and five assists against the Rockets on Saturday, becoming the only teenager in NBA history to record consecutive 30-point double-doubles. He is the betting favorite for Rookie of the Year. He is, by any reasonable measure, thriving.

So when Ron Harrod Jr. of DLLS Sports asked Kidd about the ongoing national criticism of playing Flagg at point guard, Kidd didn’t have much patience for it.

“Criticism? That’s your opinion. You guys write that bullsh*t,” Kidd said after the Mavericks’ 111-107 loss to Houston. “That’s not — I’ve done this. I’ve played this game. I played it at a high level. I know what the f*ck I’m doing.

“I don’t give a f*ck what you guys write because you guys have never played the game. I build players, so I know what the f*ck I’m doing. So if I take criticism, it only makes me better, because if I wasn’t doing it right, you guys wouldn’t be poking holes in what I’ve done.”

The criticism isn’t exactly unfounded, though. Kidd started Flagg at point guard for the first seven games of the season. It didn’t work, at least not on the court. Flagg is 6-foot-9 and a natural small forward who had never played the position before. He shot 38.8% from the floor during that stretch while averaging 13.6 points and 2.9 assists. The offense looked uncomfortable with a 19-year-old rookie as the primary ball handler.

Even Kidd’s own son, TJ, went on social media and questioned why his father kept doing it.

Kidd pulled Flagg off point guard after those seven games. Flagg has thrived ever since, playing in his natural forward position with a lineup that doesn’t use a traditional point guard.

But Kidd’s postgame response wasn’t really a defense of development philosophy. It was a defense of not being questioned. Flagg himself acknowledged in November that the point guard role was too much pressure too fast. “I don’t know if I was ready for that or if I was ready to handle that right off the bat,” Flagg said. His own trainer said the stretch was developmentally valuable because it forced Flagg to handle pressure and get comfortable with the ball, but that’s a pretty different argument than the one Kidd is making.

There’s a version of this where Kidd is right. He did the same thing with Giannis Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee, consistently putting the ball in his hands early to force him into playmaking decisions. The discomfort is supposed to accelerate development. And looking at where Flagg is now, something obviously clicked.

But Kidd didn’t say the point guard stretch was a calculated step in Flagg’s development. He said reporters have no right to question him because they’ve never played the game. That’s a different argument. Plenty of people who have played this game at a very high level — including Draymond Green — were saying the exact same thing reporters were saying. Kidd can believe his approach worked. He just can’t pretend that no one with basketball credentials raised concerns about it.

Flagg is clearly in a better place now. The last two games have been some of the most exciting basketball a rookie has played in years. Kidd deserves credit for eventually making the adjustment. But going off on reporters for pointing out that the first seven games didn’t work isn’t the same thing as being right about everything he’s done.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann