Dallas Mavericks win the NBA draft lottery and the chance to pick Cooper Flagg No. 1 overall

CHICAGO (AP) — The ping-pong balls have spoken: Cooper Flagg might be headed to Dallas to start his NBA career.

And a fan base that lost Luka Doncic this season might have a new star to cheer for.

The Mavericks won the NBA draft lottery on Monday night, giving them the No. 1 pick in next month’s draft — and the first chance to take Flagg, the freshman who led Duke to the Final Four in his lone college season and the consensus player of the year.

A screaming-for-joy Mark Cuban called new Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont — who was at his child's track meet — with the happy news, and just like that, there's something to root for in Dallas again after a tumultuous few months where Doncic got traded and the Mavs missed the playoffs. Cuban was so excited that Dumont evidently couldn't even make out the words he was saying. He just figured they were good ones.

“I am so happy for Mavericks fans,” Dallas CEO Rick Welts said, clutching the envelope with the No. 1 emblazoned on it. “I only got to Dallas January 1st this year. February 1st, we broke the internet. I am just amazed at the depth of emotion and connection that the fan base has with this team. And what happened today, I can’t imagine a better day for Mavs fans. It's going to really be something special. I can’t wait to get back to Dallas.”

Dallas bucked huge odds to get it done, with only a 1.8% chance — “a 1.8% chance? Are you kidding me?” Welts said — to win the lottery coming into Monday. A Mavs team that went to the NBA Finals last season, then scorned its fans by trading away Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, left the lottery with the biggest prize.

“I didn’t try to think about it too much,” Flagg said on the broadcast of the lottery about what it’ll likely mean for his immediate future. “It was out of my control.”

If Miami had lost in the play-in tournament, the Heat would have had the odds that the Mavericks ended up having — so if the ping-pong balls bounced the same way, they would have had the No. 1 pick.

“I mean come on man,” Heat forward Kevin Love posted on social media when the lottery winner was announced, presumably reacting to seeing a No. 1 pick that could have been Miami's go elsewhere.

Instead, it was Dallas' night. And another Texas team nearly stole the show.

San Antonio, with back-to-back rookies of the year in Victor Wembanyama — the prize of the 2023 lottery — and Stephon Castle, will pick second. Philadelphia will pick third, and Charlotte will pick fourth.

“When you jump into the top four again, you put yourself as an organization in a place to make a really big acquisition with a really good player," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "And that’s what we’re going to look forward to doing.”

Flagg averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists while leading Duke to the Final Four in his lone college season. He shot 48% from the field, 39% from 3-point range, 84% from the foul line and was The Associated Press’ national player of the year.

And he’s had success against NBA players already. Last summer, when the U.S. Olympic team was holding its training camp in Las Vegas in advance of the Paris Games — where the Americans won gold yet again — Flagg was part of the select team brought in for scrimmages against the Olympians.

Flagg, who was 17 years old at the time, more than held his own in those workouts.

“I don’t know who we’re going to take, but should we take him, I think his resume is pretty strong,” Welts said. “Every time he’s put in a situation that everyone wondered if he could succeed, he's succeeded and then some.”

Utah will pick fifth, Washington sixth, New Orleans seventh, Brooklyn eighth, Toronto ninth, Houston 10th, Portland 11th, Chicago 12th, Atlanta 13th and San Antonio 14th.

There were 13 teams with a chance to win the No. 1 pick. Utah, Washington and Charlotte had the best odds at 14% each. The Jazz and Wizards got jumped, with San Antonio and Philadelphia moving into the top four.

“This draft is really strong at the top, especially in the top three and we’re very excited," 76ers basketball operations president Daryl Morey said.

For the Jazz, it was the extension of a trend they didn’t want to see continue — in this format, the team that finished the season with the worst record hasn’t won the lottery. Utah was a league-worst 17-65 this season and got the fifth pick, its worst possible lottery outcome.

There were 14 lottery spots but only 13 teams with a chance to win the No. 1 pick because Atlanta’s odds conveyed to San Antonio, essentially meaning the Spurs were in the lottery twice — with a 6% chance of winning on their own, and a 0.7% chance to win with the Hawks’ combinations of ping-pong balls.

This system has been in place since 2019, the latest effort to discourage tanking — the practice where teams aren’t overly interested in winning regular-season games with hopes instead of bettering their chances of winning the No. 1 draft pick.

The teams with the three worst records all have the same chance — 14% — of winning the No. 1 pick, and odds for the remaining lottery teams are gradually reduced from there.

The lottery only sets the order for the first 14 picks in the draft. The rest of the first-round order, for now: Oklahoma City at No. 15, Orlando No. 16, Minnesota No. 17, Washington No. 18, Brooklyn No. 19 and Miami No. 20.

From there, the final 10 picks in the first round are owned by Utah (21), Atlanta (22), Indiana (23), Oklahoma City (24), Orlando (25), Brooklyn (26 and 27), Boston (28), Phoenix (29) and the Los Angeles Clippers (30).

AP Sports Writer Andrew Seligman contributed to this report.

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Dallas Mavericks' Rolando Blackman celebrates after NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announced that the Mavericks won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Dallas Mavericks' Rolando Blackman, left, and NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum, right, pose for photos after Tatum announced that the Mavericks had won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Duke's Kon Knueppel, left, and Cooper Flagg, right, smile at the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announces that the Dallas Mavericks won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Dallas Mavericks' Rolando Blackman celebrates after NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announced that the Mavericks won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Dallas Mavericks' Rolando Blackman, left, and NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum, right, pose for photos after Tatum announced that the Mavericks had won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Duke's Kon Knueppel, left, and Cooper Flagg, right, smile at the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announces that the Dallas Mavericks won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

FILE - Duke's Cooper Flagg (2) looks back after dunking the ball as Houston's Terrance Arceneaux (23), Mylik Wilson (8) and Milos Uzan (7) watch during the first half in the national semifinals at the Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Saturday, April 5, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday that the heroic actions of the crew aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 ensured everyone survived the terrifying incident last year when the door plug panel flew off the plane shortly after takeoff in January of 2024.

But Homendy said “the crew shouldn’t have had to be heroes, because this accident never should have happened” if Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration had done enough to ensure the safety of the Boeing 737 Max plane.

She said the investigation over the past 17 months found bigger problems than just the revelation that bolts securing what is known as the door plug panel were removed and never replaced during a repair because “an accident like this only happens when there are multiple system failures.”

Homendy said Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, has made many improvements in safety since he took the job last summer but more needs to be done. The board is expected to approve several recommendations at Tuesday's meeting to keep something similar from happening again.

The blow out aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 occurred minutes after it took off from Portland, Oregon, and created a roaring air vacuum that sucked objects out of the cabin and scattered them on the ground below along with debris from the fuselage. Seven passengers and one flight attended received minor injuries, but no one was killed. Pilots were able to land the plane safely back at the airport.

The accident occurred as the plane flew at 16,000 feet (4,800 meters). Oxygen masks dropped during the rapid decompression and a few cellphones and other objects were swept through the hole in the plane as 171 passengers contended with wind and roaring noise.

The first six minutes of the flight to Southern California’s Ontario International Airport were routine. The Boeing 737 Max 9 was about halfway to its cruising altitude and traveling at more than 400 mph (640 kph) when passengers described a loud “boom” and wind so strong it ripped the shirt off someone’s back.

“We knew something was wrong,” Kelly Bartlett told The Associated Press in the days following the flight. “We didn’t know what. We didn’t know how serious. We didn’t know if it meant we were going to crash.”

The 2-foot-by-4-foot (61-centimeter-by-122-centimeter) piece of fuselage covering an unoperational emergency exit behind the left wing had blown out. Only seven seats on the flight were unoccupied, including the two seats closest to the opening.

The panel that blew off was made and installed by a supplier, Spirit AeroSystems. It was removed at a Boeing factory so workers could repair damaged rivets, but bolts that help secure the door plug were not replaced. It’s not clear who removed the panel.

The NTSB said in a preliminary report that four bolts were not replaced after a repair job in a Boeing factory, but the company has said the work was not documented.

Investigators determined the door plug was gradually moving upward over the 154 flights prior to this incident before it ultimately flew off.

Boeing factory workers told NTSB investigators they felt pressured to work too fast and were asked to perform jobs they weren’t qualified for, including opening and closing the door plug on the particular plane involved. Only one of the 24 people on the door team had ever removed one of these plugs before and that person was on vacation when it was done on the plane.

A Boeing door installer said he was never told to take any shortcuts, but everyone faced pressure to keep the assembly line moving.

“That’s how mistakes are made. People try to work too fast,” he told investigators. The installer and other workers were not named in documents about the probe.

Investigators said Boeing did not do enough to train newer workers who didn't have a background in manufacturing. Many of its workers who were hired after the pandemic and after two crashes involving the 737 Max planes lacked that experience.

But the NTSB staff also told the board Boeing didn't have strong enough safety practices in place to ensure the door plug was properly reinstalled, and the FAA inspection system did not do a good job of catching systemic failures in manufacturing.

The Max version of Boeing’s bestselling 737 airplane has been the source of persistent troubles for the company since two of the jets crashed, one in Indonesia in 2018 and another in Ethiopia in 2019, killing a combined 346 people.

Investigators determined those crashes were caused by a system that relied on a sensor providing faulty readings to push the nose down, leaving pilots unable to regain control. After the second crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned the system.

Last month, the Justice Department reached a deal allowing Boeing to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading U.S. regulators about the Max before the two crashes.

But regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration have capped Boeing's 737 Max production at 38 jets a month while investigators ensure the company has strengthened its safety practices.

Boeing hired Ortberg last year and created a new position for a senior vice president of quality to help improve its manufacturing.

The company was back in the news earlier this month when a 787 flown by Air India crashed shortly after takeoff and killed at least 270 people. Investigators have not determined what caused that crash, but so far they have not found any flaws with the model, which has a strong safety record.

Associated Press writer Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.

National Transportation Safety Board chairman Jennifer Homendy listens during a meeting about Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, Tuesday, June 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

National Transportation Safety Board chairman Jennifer Homendy listens during a meeting about Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, Tuesday, June 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

National Transportation Safety Board members J. Todd Inman, Michael Graham, Jennifer Homendy and Thomas Chapman meet to discuss Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, Tuesday, June 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

National Transportation Safety Board chairman Jennifer Homendy speaks during a meeting about Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, Tuesday, June 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)