Proposed trade sending Duke’s Cooper Flagg to Bucks ‘would almost certainly get Milwaukee’s attention’

The two biggest NBA stories this offseason, the Dallas Mavericks landing the rights to select Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s likely imminent trade departure from the Milwaukee Bucks, both broke on the same day on Monday.

Dallas, despite owning a 1.8% chance of landing the top overall selection, shocked the world with their lottery victory.

Certainly, though, talk of Antetokounmpo going elsewhere after the Bucks’ aging core broke down with injuries again and was eliminated in the first round for the third straight postseason didn’t.

Newsweek’s Noah Camras believes the two stories could become intertwined, since the Mavs offering the ex-Duke Blue Devils basketball phenom for Antetokounmpo “would almost certainly get Milwaukee’s attention.”

Camras also sees Antetokounmpo as the kind of player Dallas GM Nico Harrison desires on his roster.

“While plenty of teams could make a compelling package to Milwaukee, it's hard to imagine anything being more enticing than adding Flagg, the 19-year-old coming off a season in which he won the AP Player of the Year award, the Naismith Award and the Wooden Award at Duke,” Camras wrote.

“A package centered around Flagg and contracts to make the money work would almost certainly get Milwaukee's attention. On the flip side, Dallas would yet again be trading a young superstar to get one of the best bigs (and defenders) in the league.

“Antetokounmpo, a nine-time All-Star, five time All-Defensive Teamer and the 2019-20 Defensive Player of the Year certainly fits the type of player Harrison and the Mavericks have said they coveted.”

Harrison trading away the rights to draft Flagg for a player on the wrong side of 30 after dealing Luka Doncic away in February would make his reputation even worse in Dallas.

Somehow.

Maybe Milwaukee would listen to talks about a Flagg-Antetokounmpo swap. Dallas would probably catch itself before alienating every single remaining fan by going through with it following the Doncic disaster, though.