The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Cooper Flagg vs. Bronny James Reaction: Mavericks get late win over Lakers on Summer League Day 1

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Jason reacts to the opening day of Las Vegas NBA Summer League including Mavericks top pick Cooper Flagg's debut against Bronny James, Dalton Knecht, and the Los Angeles Lakers. He also discusses impressive games from Ryan Nembhard and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Nikola Topic as well as what he expects from Bronny in terms of the NBA.   #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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casino and resort in Kansas. 21 plus age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.c.c.com slash audio. Good to hoops tonight here at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. We are here in Vegas for Summer League. It's been a very fun first day. I got to hop on with Kevin O'Connor, as well as a buddy of mine, Domon Rangula, who was a big Lakers fan and we talked a bunch of stuff at the top of the Western Conference, some Lakers, some Clippers, some hierarchy stuff in the Western Conference.

I recommend you guys head over to check that out. I'm excited today to get into the first set of summer league games. Unfortunately, Dylan Harper with a late scratch with a groin injury, VJ Edgecombe, late scratch as well, I believe a wrist or a hand injury of some kind. So we're going to be primarily focusing in on the Cooper Flag versus Brony James showdown, which got to a really fun start. Obviously, brawny comes out, guns, blazing, hitting shots, and Cooper Fly gets a big dunk. He tries to dunk on somebody at one point for a miss.

There's a potential Brani game winner that goes off the iron at the buzzer. It's really fun first game of Summer League. I'm excited to dive into that. Again, I'm going to be primarily focusing on that game. I have a couple of other thoughts on Nicola Topich and just how him and Ryan Nemhard kind of represent a basketball concept that I've always been a big believer in. but we're just going to break down those games tonight and then we'll get out here. You guys are the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels.

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Remember, we kind of changed our format there. just on our full episodes under the comments, just put mailbag with a colon, write your question, we'll get to those once a week throughout the remainder of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball. So, you know, I thought that game was such a fun showcase of Cooper Flagg's versatile basketball talent. We've had all these quotes come from the organization,

and Jason Kidd himself talking about wanting to put Cooper Flagg in all these different situations and wanting to make him uncomfortable, putting him on the ball as a shot creator, just making him do all of these kind of different basketball things. And that really is how you maximize a talent like Cooper Flag. There's going to be some big picture concerns. We saw some of his difficulty dealing with Darius Basley and ISO. He had kind of a rough switch hunting rep late in the game against Colesweider. We're going to talk about that. It's obviously got some stuff he's got to work out. but right out the gates, this is quite possibly one of the best NBA-ready basketball players

that you'll find near the top of the draft. So many of the guys that we see here are guys that have otherworldly potential. And we'll see whether or not Cooper Flag can achieve some of that big picture potential. But in terms of just being a NBA-ready basketball player, Cooper Flag is about as ready for that situation as you can manage. imagine. So let's dive into that concept here a little bit. We've been talking about this a lot lately. What does it mean to just be like a good basketball player? That's changed over the years. Over the years, because of the way things have changed schematically, specifically the influx of

transition pushes, as well as switching schemes, all of a sudden, defensively, a player's versatility matters a lot more than whether or not he's really good at protecting the rim or really good at pressuring and opposing guard, right? Like the game has changed. It's become something where it doesn't matter if you're Luca Donchich and you're really good at playing off ball defense in a scheme for three playoff rounds. If all of a sudden the Boston Celtics go, let's see you guard the ball for seven games. Let's see how that goes for you. Like defensive versatility matters more than ever. And then, you know, we talked a lot about the idea of advantage creation as it pertains to guys like Tyrese Halliburton and Nicola Yokic and all these guys that can set you up with

these situations where you have a defender sprinting at you or some kind of advantage in some way, shape, or form. Well, it goes beyond that star power talent. We saw that today in Summerlee. NBA schemes with the kind of action that you run can generate advantages. Transition pushes can generate advantages. Defense can generate man advantages. right biggest play of the game cooper flag makes a help side rotation gets a block at the rim pushes the ball the other way doesn't force the issue i thought all night long cooper just did such a great job of not forcing the issue in traffic and just making the easy kickout reads that were available makes a nice drop-off pass to ryan mhardt hits a three all of a sudden the mavericks

have a one-point lead that originated off of defense that created an advantage and from there Cooper played with the advantage to find the next hog in that train, which was Ryan Nemhard wide open on the right wing. The game of basketball has changed beyond anything having to do with the elite advantage creation, defense transition, high quality offensive structure can set basketball players up with advantages. And that's where being a really good basketball player comes into the equation. Because once you have that advantage, it's not about the set. It's about just playing basketball, meaning if you're open, take the shot. If the guy's sprinting at you, drive the closeout. When the help rotation comes, make the next pass in line. Okay,

they didn't make a help side rotation or there isn't an easy kickout read. Now you might have to go into a little bit of a tougher bit of shot making in the short range out of a closeout, something along those lines. We're going to talk about that with respect to Brani soon. But like, once you have the advantage, it becomes about just playing basketball. I remember a shout out, Doug DeMori does an amazing job. He coached, he was the coach at the high school that I started coaching at in Tucson four years ago. And I remember he used to always stop practice every time kids got robotic after they'd run a set because he'd be like, hey, once we're running the set to get that first advantage. From there, just play basketball. Stop being a robot, just play basketball. And that

Cooper flag to me is the quintessential definition of just a modern basketball player. Yes, he's big, but he played point guard today. He is literally doing everything. He's running inverted action with Ryan Nemhard. He's setting screens for Ryan Nemhart. He's bringing the ball up the floor against ball pressure. He's doing, he's attacking out of the post. He's running horn sets.

He's doing all of these different things because he can do all of these different things. I was so impressed by just his overall basic fundamentals. Something simple like handling ball pressure. He got, you know, brawny for various stretches of the game. He got Darius Basley for various stretches of the game. Faced a bunch of different types of defenders that did a bunch of physical ball pressure against him. They double teamed him on the first possession off of the opening tip. And just rock solid, protecting the basketball, making like really aggressive moves

and then retreat dribbles, which are a great way to attack ball pressure. A guy's up in your business, attack, retreat. That creates separation. Once that initial separation is there, that's when you can get into your bag. And you saw that against Baselie a couple times where he'd make that first move, retreat dribble, then all of a sudden it's like crossover, crossover, crossover, because now he's got Baselian on skates because he got that initial separation off of that first move. He actually picked up like three or four fouls against Basley in ball pressure situations

because he just attacked him. When a physical player gets up in your business, go downhill, attack him and force the ref to make a call. Even when he faced smaller players that tried to get up underneath them, he just protected the ball well. We're going to talk about this a little bit more with Nicola Topich, but like one of the big things for bigger ball handlers is you're not going to get a first step super easily against good perimeter defenders. Cooper flag is going to face a lot of dudes who are between 64 and 6'6,6, that are really quick. laterally that are going to beat him to spots. So one of the ways that bigger ball handlers deal with that is by handling the ball through contact and using that physical leverage to get separation.

You rip to the left, Basley slides over, and it beats you to the spot, you spin, and you just maintain control of the basketball through the spin. And as you're spinning, you get to swing that left shoulder around and hit the guy. And then you can keep going downhill. We've seen so many examples of that with Nicola Topic over the course of his first few summer league games. We've seen that with Cooper today. I was so impressed by him handling the ball through that contact.

This is what Luca Donchish has been doing in the NBA for all these years so far. He gets that first little bit of an angle. The quicker player overreacts. He spins off or he bumps him with that shoulder. And as Cooper gets bigger and stronger, he's going to be able to do that even more effectively. I was so impressed by the job he did just,

handling ball pressure, not forcing the issue when he gets into the paint. This was a big one for me. All game long, when he would get into the paint and the defense would react to him, he was just spraying the ball out to the perimeter, especially in transition. He was like, again, this is a big transition athlete. He could have forced the issue. He had one early in the game where he took a little mid-range jumper along the right baseline where he was kind of pushing it a little bit. But for the most part, he got in there and made simple kickout reads. That's what you want to do when you're playing on a really good basketball team that has DeAngelo Russell and Anthony Davis and is going to have Kyrie Irving when he returns that has the talent that this team has. P.J. Washington

spotting up in the corner, you know, Derek lively on a lobby through a beautiful lob in crunch time that the big man just couldn't handle. You know, it's one of those things where that you can tell he's a natural at making these basketball reads. And again, if a good coach and a talented roster is going to consistently set him up with those types of advantages, he's going to instantly thrive. Again, we'll talk about the big picture issues surrounding like what it's going to be like when he's attacking matchups and stuff like that, but his fundamentals are so rock solid. And it comes with the highlights, right? We saw the big block and help side that led to the lead changing three, the big dunk in transition, which it looked like he kind of lost his footing.

And he took off from super far away, but he just powered up and he's got such long arms that he was able to get all the way to the rim. The highlights are there, but it's the fundamental stuff that's going to make him a really impact basketball player right away. This is what lines up so well with Dallas in their timeline. They need him to be good right away, and he's going to be. His low man rotations alongside AD. AD is going to be up at the level in ball screens, swiping at a pull-up shooter. The role man's going to get behind him sometimes. Cooper Flag is super well equipped, both as a defensive decision maker and as a vertical athlete to make those rotations at the rim and to be impactful as a help side defender. Play in action with an advantage alongside AD with DeAngela

Russell is a very good pick and roll shot creator in the regular season. We were talking about him after he signed as like a very poor man's James Harden. That's why he has so much utility in this league. Look, I rooted for him with the Lakers for a while. I had my frustrations with him in the postseason and just his general kind of lack of attention to detail on defense. That dude is a, he greases the wheels on offense. With him, with Anthony Davis, Cooper is going to play with an advantage, and I know he's going to be great with that right away. Now, what is the ceiling?

What is the determining factor of the wide range of outcomes in Cooper Flagg's career? I put it down to two things. One is the jump shooting. He had a lot of clean catch and shoot looks today that he missed. He had like a pull-up three and a ball screen against a drop coverage that he missed. That was a good look that he just missed. He had like an ISO-3 at the top of the key where the defender was playing off of him and baiting him into the shot.

And he kind of like hesitated, hesitated, hesitated. And finally took like a really exaggerated like a hesitation pull-up that he ended up missing. The jump shot is going to be a major swing factor for him. Whether or not he becomes a good, great elite jump shooter, that is going to be a, a major swing factor in how high Cooper flags ceiling ends up eventually reaching. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name?

Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to a first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys?

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We were talking about a thing A bit for the podcast For people could call in and say hey Jonas And then I wrote down on my little Notepad Hey Jonas And offered it up as a potential title For the podcast But thanks for remembering that

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The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis. And I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs. And on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on clay. Genshin win. I mean, she went down in three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me.

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You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The second piece that I wanted to highlight here was his ISO kind of like switch hunting process. So he had a couple of pretty bad post-up reps against Darius Basley where he struggled to get separation and he took like some really heavily contested fadeaways that he missed. No get me wrong.

If he gets to the point as a jump shooter where he can hit super tough fadeaways, there's still some utility there. But like he was getting like really tough shots in that situation. Then there was a late possession where, because I was the same. with Jackson up in the stands and we were talking about how like he needs to get somebody different switched on to him which again is going to be his switch hunting process which we'll talk about in a minute but so he ends up getting cole swider and instead of like pulling Cole out and then trying to beat him off the dribble he kind of attacked him right away without much momentum and he ended up settling for a pretty tough fade away in the lane that he missed badly

off the side of the rim and that Cole got a great contest on that's the thing with him similar to the the conversations we had we've had with haydham the elite first step quickness the the just like straight up s tier athleticism to get separation from peak athletes like that sort of stuff is going to be more difficult with cooper in his career and so how does cooper reach the level of a top tier shot creator without top tier you know athletic scoring traits like the ability to just dust everyone off the dribble or LeBron James power or whatever it might be that leads that ability. Well, it's about process at that point. So for instance, Darius was one of the few guys on the floor that actually could hang with him athletically. Cooper should almost never, unless it's a

late clock, like rescue possession, like, oh, there's four on the clock, I have to shoot. If it's not that he should never look to attack the one guy on the floor who's physically equipped to handle him. And this is where it becomes about process. I believe in his passing ability. And I don't think, again, we were talking about S-tier traits. Like, is he Derek Rose quick? No. Is he LeBron power? No. So obviously that's going to give him the ability to score on the best players in the world one-on-one, but he absolutely can be an impactful one-on-one shot creator against players that he has an advantage against. And so that's where the process comes into the equation, being deliberate about picking the right guys to attack. Once you have that matchup,

getting to a spot where it makes sense. So for instance, the cleared side post-ups with Brani, that makes some sense because it's an easy spot on the floor for him to back down and to have some room to make some moves, right? The Coleswider play. After he gets that switch, Cole can't move his feet. That's the one thing that's keeping him from sticking in the league, even though he can really shoot the ball super well, right? So if Cooper just pulls him out to the perimeter, then breaks him down off the bounce,

that's where he's going to be able to get some higher quality shots instead of some of these tougher turnaround fadeaways like he got in those spots. So like his ISO switch hunting process, just being more deliberate about getting favorable matchups, and then two, just overall his jump shooting. Those are going to be the major swings. for him in his potential ceiling as an NBA player.

But really nice first showing for Cooper. Again, it wasn't perfect. The jump shooting was a little rough. But I thought he showcased his hyper-versible basketball talent. And I believe he's just going to be an impact winning level, a winning type of player in the NBA, literally day one as a Dallas Maverick. And that's just really rare for a player of his talent level.

Ryan Nemhart. What a joy watching. another Nemhard brother just pick a team apart in the mid-range. We were having a great time watching him today. You know, him and Nicola Topich represent another kind of big picture basketball idea for me involving, you know, we were talking about being a basketball player, right? Well, there aren't that many players in the league that are really comfortable running the action, right? Like being the guy at the beginning of the possession, right? Like if we, if we break down offense into a three-step process, advantage,

creation, advantage extending, and play finishing. That first part, when the defender is loaded up on you and the defense is loaded up on the strong side, that first bit of breaking down the defense is often the hardest part. And it comes down to in action, it comes down to two things, right? Like one, being able to score in the action as it's covered traditionally, right? So if a ball screen is being covered two on two, meaning all the off ball defenders are staying home and the on-ball guy is chasing over the top and the big man's in some kind of drop coverage,

he's defending the action two on two, right? That means if the defense runs a deep drop and the guy is chasing over the top, the read is the mid-range shot. It is to score in the ball screen. Then when you score in the ball screen enough times, the defense reacts by bringing that third defender into the action, that's when you have the ability to get the defense and rotation and start playing that

driving kick basketball. And that's when your basketball players become much more valuable, right? And both Nicola Topich over the course of his entire Summer League debut to this point. And then I thought Ryan Nemhard did a great job of demonstrating it today, the ability to hit drop coverage shots. I know they've become unpopular with the discussion surrounding analytics in the NBA. and like no one is sitting here saying that you want to take, you know, 20 mid-range pull-ups and floaters over the course of a game as like a consistent shot diet. But like, hey, man, if they're going to guard pick and roll two on two, you've got to show the ability to score the basketball in order to turn that ball screen

into an advantage play. And it's in different ways, right? Like for Nicola Toepitch, it's a lot of like these big man spins like we were talking about with Cooper Flagg, like dribbling through contact using his size and his power. He had another one of those like super nice little floaters in the lane off of a spin in drop coverage today. Uh, and then with Topich, what you saw too is like with these crazy whipping cross court passes. He had like a lefty hook whip to the right corner that led to an extra pass up to the right wing for an open three that went in today. With Nemhard, super solid

following, uh, handling the ball pressure. And then for him, it's just that shiftiness in the mid range, that ability to get to all these different types of short range bits of shot making. The release looks a lot like his brothers, right? Like it's like compact, but like the elbow goes a little further out than you typically see from a jump shooter. But he just was super comfortable getting to his spots there and then was still able to play with that advantage, right? Like Cooper Flag on that late transition push, hits Ryan Nemhart on the right wing. He knocks down just a simple catch and shoot three. That ends up being a big shot.

I was talking with Jackson and the Uber on the way back from the game. And like, if Ryan Nemhardt can find a role in the NBA, it just like legitimizes some of my like big picture basketball beliefs because the ability to handle ball pressure effectively get a team into action and then make basic reads with the mid to short range shot making you need to score in ball screens. It's just such a valuable NBA trait. specifically for like with Nicola Topich for OKC like we saw a ball handling shortage shortage in this postseason that was a big part of why they struggled with Indiana it was all

Jdub or Shea that was comfortable creating action right Nicola Topich can be a guy who who comes into the game and can run action for them that can get them that initial advantage and then again the big thing with him compared to like a Josh giddy if you remember was spot up shooting right and Nicole Topich tonight two wide open looks on the left wing down the stretch, both of them just clean in off the back rim. Like, that's going to be the big thing for him. If Nicole Totepich can hit those wide open catch and shoot threes, it will allow him to also play off the ball.

And then obviously there's defensive question marks with him as well. But I really enjoyed watching him and Ryan Nemhardt today. One thing before we get out of here, Brony James. I have talked a lot about Brani over the course of the last couple years. and the fact that he just has this obvious NBA role, which is he's a very good athlete at the guard position with good size strength and athleticism. You saw him Stonewall Cooper Flagg on a post-up a couple times today, right?

Like just defending with that size and strength, he plays bigger than he actually is. And then to play as a off-ball guard, meaning, yeah, if the ball gets swung to you in second-side action, sure, whatever, you can run a ball screen, but he's primarily going to be catching, like, with an advantage, taking catch and shoot threes, driving closeouts. That was always what I saw Brani's career as.

And then there was a quote, and it was, I want to say it was after last season. I think it was after last season. It was several months ago. But someone asked Brony, like, what do you view as your role as an NBA player? And he straight up came out and said, like, I want to be an on-ball guard. and I was immediately concerned because I'm like, I just don't see him as even close to ready for that yet. And it was abundantly clear last year.

It's still clear today. You saw him today like throwing pocket pass as a touch early where the big man just hasn't really gotten into a position where he can do anything yet. There was a play on his like third or fourth pocket pass where he didn't see the low man. And so he threw the pocket pass like kind of as an over-the-top pass. it just got picked off.

And like he missed a skip to the to the right side. He took a floater in a ball screen where the defender was draped on his backside. And it's like he just didn't even see that the defender was behind him. And again, I, this is not mean I don't think Bronte can be an NBA player. I like, I truly believe with his work ethic, with the resources that he has, with the natural athleticism that he has, that he can by the end of his rookie contract, become a guy who can play bench guard minutes in the NBA, defending and playing up with an advantage. I do believe he, I truly believe he has that role available to him as an NBA player. I think he is miles and

miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and years and years and years and years away from being a guy who can like be the offensive initiator for an NBA offense. And I do think it'll be a crossroads for him in his career, whether or not he's willing to accept that reality and make that adjustment. We talked about Ryan Nemhart earlier. And like Ryan's not going to be some, like, he doesn't have the unbelievable traits to be like a high volume, a guy for like a starting unit for a serious NBA team. I'm talking about him as a potential backup guard in the NBA for a team like the Dallas Mavericks. The gap between how competent Ryan Nemhard looked initiating offense in brawny james was a chasm the gap between cooper flag initiating offense handling

ball pressure spraying the ball out in brawny james was a chasm and cooper's barely starting to begin that part of his uh of his repetition as a on ball guy like um like he was starting to do towards the end of the year at duke right like he's just a natural lad Ryan Nemhart's been doing it his entire life. Broni is not close to that type of player as a natural player. His natural gifts lie in what he can do defensively, what he can do as an athlete, and what he can do off ball as a guard.

And for the record, like, I don't know why people are under the impression that you can't get buckets or score the basketball playing as an offball player. There are entire archetypes of players that do this. Cam Johnson, Michael Porter Jr., we've been talking about those guys over the course. course the last couple of weeks. You don't think that you can score

the Aaron Neesmith, what is some of the stuff he did for Indiana this year. You don't think you can score the basketball or like put up shots as an off ball player. If he gets really good at knocking down catch and shoot threes, he speeds up his release, gets a little bit more lift on it, and

adds like a bunch of on-ball skills as like a close-out attacker. Like he had a little step-back jump shot over Cooper Flag. I like that move driving a close-out for him. One of the things with playing with an advantage is it simplifies the reeds, right? So like if you're playing against a loaded up defense and the big comes up to the level or is in a higher drop and the strong because you're attacking from the strong side, the defense is loaded up, there's so much more

you have to interpret. That's why he didn't see the back pressure on the floater. That's why he didn't see the skip pass on that turnover on the pocket pass, right? It's because there's just so much congestion and there's so many things you have to interpret in those moments. When you're attacking with an advantage, the defense is loosened. You're attacking from the weak side. You're attacking in space. All of a sudden, your ability to interpret that becomes a lot easier. And that's where I still think there is scoring potential for him there.

I'm not saying that Bronte can't average double figures in the NBA one day. I'm just saying I don't see him as a primary on-ball shot creator. And I do think part of his development is going to be accepting that reality and building out quick decision-making. A lot of like a lot of just attacking with an advantage, meaning a lot of like King of the Court stuff where you're playing one-on-one against the guy sprinting at you. Those are the areas where he can build out potential as a score.

I just don't see him as being a primary on-ball weapon in the NBA. All right, guys, that is all we have for tonight. As always, we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We have Yovon coming on tomorrow morning to do a bunch of Lakers stuff. So we'll talk Lakers there. Adam Maris from DNVR. My good friend is coming on the show tomorrow in the evening. For those of you guys in the Vegas area, we're going to be recording at the win.

That's going to be fun. And then obviously Saturday night, we're going to hopefully get an opportunity to talk some Dylan Harper. I'm hoping that he plays at some point this weekend or Vijay Edgecom as well. Hopefully we have some more of the top guys to react to at that point. But we've got a jam-pack weekend. Again, as always, I appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll see you tomorrow morning.

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