The Dallas Mavericks are set to kick off their 2025-26 regular season on Wednesday night when they host the San Antonio Spurs. It'll be a big night for Cooper Flagg, who is set to make his highly anticipated NBA debut in a special edition pair of New Balance kicks.
Flagg, the number one overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, will start in his NBA debut on Wednesday night and will be doing so in his own PE's. On Wednesday, New Balance officially dropped the Hesi Low v2 X Cooper Flagg, a player-exclusive colorway of New Balance’s popular basketball model inspired by Cooper’s Maine roots and the natural beauty of his home state. The colorway became available for retail on Wednesday, October 22nd, in honor of Flagg's debut.
In a statement, Cooper Flagg broke down the inspiration behind his player exclusive colorway.
“I’m taking the next step in my career, but I’m always going to be a product of my hometown in Maine,” Flagg said. “Working with the New Balance design team on this has been really cool and it allows me to take a piece of Newport with me as I step onto the court for my first official NBA game.”
The #1 Draft pick is ready for Day 1. Introducing the Hesi Low v2 x @Cooper_Flagg.
Available 10/22. pic.twitter.com/pHbQ2k1LWx
— New Balance (@newbalance) October 16, 2025
Flagg is joining a Dallas Mavericks team still fresh from the shocking Luka Doncic trade in February. The No. 1 overall pick is in a rare and prime position to develop both as an individual player and contribute to winning. But he's also not putting any pressure on himself to be anyone's, “savior.”
“No, not really,” Flagg said. “To me, I feel like kind of the opportunity that I was given and put into this year took a lot of that pressure off of me.
“We're a really deep team, I think that takes a lot of that pressure off of me… To just be myself and not worry about expectations to be like anybody else, but just to be me and help this team win as much as I can.”
During ESPN's pregame show, Inside the NBA, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley spoke very highly of the 18-year old Maine product and Mavericks rookie.
“The interesting thing is that, because he went to that school in Durham and played in that high school circuit, I saw him a lot,” Kenny Smith said of Cooper Flagg. “And he was a better defensive player than he was an offensive player for a long time. I was like, ‘man, this guy can block shots, he deflects, he gets you our of your rhythm,' so if you add that to his offensive arsenal…”
“Magic Johnson is the only player who came into the NBA as, ‘the guy,' who was in a better situation than Cooper Flagg. When Magic went to the Lakers, they had all those other great players. Like Shaq said, every other number one draft pick goes to a bad team. Magic came into the league in a great situation. Can you think of any other number one draft pick aside from Cooper Flagg who came into a ready-made championship contender? There's no other player who came in that can win the championship. This is the first time a number one draft pick came in and you're saying, “they can actually win the championship this year.”
Cooper Flagg played in all four of the Mavericks' preseason games, impressing with his versatility, scoring prowess, and playmaking. In his four appearances, Flagg averaged 11.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.3 steals, and 0.8 blocks in just 21.7 minutes per game.
On a per-36 minute pace, that would project Flagg to average 18.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 2.1 steals, and 1.2 blocks per game.
