Every time Jack Johnson’s big Black fists smashed into a white fighter’s face, he wasn’t just breaking the bones of his opponents, but the spirit of White America. Blow after blow after blow. Out of this shame, a mythos was born. One after another, white fighters propped up like scarecrows. One after another, collapsing. As cultural critic Gerald Early has argued, Johnson’s fights became less about sport and more about the drama of race in America, with every knockout symbolizing a direct challenge to white supremacy. For the next 100 years, across multiple sports, whites have tried to find the next champion to return them to glory. This myth-making even inspired Howard Sackler’s Pulitzer-winning play The Great White Hope.
In basketball, figures like Jerry West and “Pistol” Pete Maravich represented Anglo excellence before the NBA’s full desegregation revealed the overwhelming superiority of African-American players. By the time Larry Bird rose in the 1980s, the Great White Hope narrative had simply been repackaged for a new generation. Bird was a badass hick from Indiana. Bird was a godsend to Boston’s white working class. Bird was Magic’s equal. Bird was the Great White Hope disguised as the Great White Hope denier.
From a 1985 Sports Illustrated profile:
I don’t want to be seen as the Great White Hope. I just want to be a great basketball player, period.
But that was 40 years ago. The MVP-level white players since have all been European (Dirk Nowitzki, Luka Dončić, Nikola Jokić). There hasn’t been an American white All-Star in the NBA since Kevin Love in 2018: a good player, but no superstar.
If there were ever a made-for-TV plot for the next Great White Hope to emerge, Sackler couldn’t have imagined a better milieu than the Dallas Mavericks. This is the only franchise that can say its three best all-time players are all white (Steve Nash, Nowitzki, Dončić). With Dončić’s trade to the Lakers still fresh and raw, Dallas are desperate. The city has been languishing, nursing an open wound. So when luck on the level of conspiracy fell in Harrison’s lap, Cooper Flagg became part of a myth-cycle that pre-dates him by a millennium.
Not since LeBron James in 2003 has a rookie arrived carrying such immense expectations, along with the hopes of a city desperate for deliverance. In Dallas, the 18-year-old Flagg is walking into a shit show. The Dončić trade was one of the worst ever. When he was traded, the fanbase protested losing him outside the arena for weeks, even dragging a coffin to the steps of American Airlines Center. A dead fandom in a dead box. Harrison should thank his dumb luck, or the scripted simulacrum that landed him Flagg, who ostensibly saved his job.
None of this is Flagg’s fault. He’s just a nice kid from Maine who wants to hoop. But the reality is the Mavericks are a massive question mark. Harrison is still the GM, so anything is possible regarding roster construction. Kyrie Irving re-signed with Dallas this summer, but is out for the year with a torn ACL. Anthony Davis is a former superstar who might still have something special left in the tank at 32, but remains the most injury-prone big man in the NBA. The rest of the roster has rangy bigs and defensive-minded wings. Shot-creation will fall primarily on Flagg, who will be the rightful favorite for Rookie of the Year. He also has a chance, with Irving out, to lead the Mavs in scoring and assists. Flagg is more known for his all-around two-way game, especially his voracious defense. But in year one, he will be asked to run the offense.
Checking out his full shooting profile reveals the cracks and the promise. From Maine United to Montverde to Duke, the data shows what kind of looks he hunts and what he makes of them. Layups (1.22 points per shot) and free throws (a ridiculous 1.62) are his bread-and-butter. Unguarded catch-and-shoot threes are money at 1.08 points per shot. Then the cracks: pull-up twos at 0.64, floaters at 0.87 sink like stones. This is where defense will force him in year one. As a rookie, he’ll have to live at the rim and on the line. The polished Bird-style pull-up daggers will come later.
Unlike the opponents Johnson put on the floor, Flagg is the real deal. He obliterates the old stereotype of the “crafty but unathletic” white player. His vertical leap is violent and quick, his defense freakishly reactive. He can shoot, handle, defend and playmake. His favorite player? Bird. No shit. He has Bird’s bawdy panache, too, which he will need every ounce of, playing for Mavericks owner Miriam Adelson. Her titles include: gambling lobbyist. Trump’s top donor. Architect of legalized vice. Builder of casinos. Propagandist for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. She is all of those things, and she is also the main architect behind legalizing gambling in Texas so that she can sink Dallas into gambling degeneracy. Rookies don’t get to decide where they’re drafted. Flagg has to play for an owner whose politics are toxic. That’s part of the pressure he’ll face just trying to hoop.
Dallas have a fanbase accustomed to white superstars. Flagg doesn’t have to fill Dončić’s shoes, but he does have to follow in his footsteps. Dirk was the silent assassin, gentle and approachable. Dončić was a devilish imp, sarcastic and full of South Dallas swag. Both were beloved. Flagg’s handoff is broken before it begins. He’ll have to dominate on the court and establish a presence off it.
So far, he’s responded coolly: “I wouldn’t look at anything as pressure. … I’m not worried about living up to certain players’ expectations. … I’m just going to be myself and really try to get better every single day that I can.”
But Flagg’s not only walking into racial baggage – he’s entering a national zeitgeist. After the first two decades of the NBA being dominated by American whites, desegregation made clear that Black players were superior in every part of the game. Ironically, Nowitzki became the archetype that helped Europe catch up to America. Dirk was the first European-born MVP, but Jokić has racked up three of his own. Former Mav Nash won back-to-back MVPs in Phoenix. Meanwhile, the US has mostly produced white role players like JJ Redick: shooters, facilitators, table-setters. It’s hard to continue to claim America is the best basketball country when it’s been eight seasons since it produced an MVP.
Flagg has the chance to be more than that. He looks like a transcendent talent, a player who could change not just how the game is played but how it’s taught. Post-Dirk, every big shoots threes. Not since Brent “Bones” Barry have we seen a white kid from the suburbs dunk like this. Defensively, Flagg is already built different. His timing and coordination are preternatural: those “dead arm” blocks where he meets the ball midair without flinching. His rim protection already resembles that of a perennial All-Defense candidate before he can legally buy a beer.
Similarly, Caitlin Clark’s arrival in the WNBA was a maelstrom of a ratings boom and culture war for a white phenom in a Black-dominated league. Flagg steps into something similar, though the script is older on the men’s side and stitched directly into NBA mythology.
It’s foolish fandom to root against anyone because of race. But it happens across all races and sports. Dallas is unique in its history of generational white stars. Flagg will have to block out the noise and focus on ball. He’s done that at every level. The city is wounded, still raw from Dončić’s departure, and there’s healing that must happen. Providing entertainment for the masses will help, but Dallas doesn’t have a mythical Jack Johnson to defeat. There’s no racial redemption arc waiting to be fulfilled. There’s just bad blood and hard truths.
Flagg doesn’t exist to redeem whiteness or avenge Jack Johnson’s ghosts. He exists in a league where those myths linger but no longer dictate the game. His story is about possibility. He’s a teenager stepping into a story larger than himself. At worst, Flagg will be a welcome distraction. At best, he could write the next chapter in basketball’s complicated history of expectations.
