Cooper Flagg Joins Kevin Durant as Only Teenagers With a 40-10-5 Game

Cooper Flagg is 19 years old, and he has already joined a club with one member in it. The Dallas Mavericks star scored 43 points with 10 rebounds and six assists in Monday’s 125-122 win over the Indiana Pacers, becoming only the second teenager in NBA history to record a 40-10-5 game. The other is Kevin Durant, who did it in 2008, and nobody has done it since.

What did Flagg actually do?

He did most of it after halftime. Flagg had 13 points at the break, Reuters reports, then scored 30 in the second half, including 14 in the third quarter on a perfect 6-of-6 from the floor. He finished 16-of-25 from the field with three steals and a block to go with the points, rebounds and assists, and he hit the step-back jumper with 26 seconds left that put Dallas up 123-119. It was his first 40-point game of the season and the fifth of his young career.

The comeback is part of the story too. Indiana led 63-50 in the second quarter, with Pascal Siakam scoring 25 points in the first half on 8-of-8 shooting, 5-of-5 from three and 4-of-4 from the line, Reuters reports. Flagg and Kyrie Irving, who scored 35 with seven three-pointers, dragged Dallas back, and the finish was chaos: Aaron Nesmith missed a three with 18 seconds left, P.J. Washington missed both free throws, and Caleb Martin stole Andrew Nembhard’s inbound with 3.7 seconds remaining. Flagg left the October game against this same Pacers team with shoulder soreness after Aaron Nesmith’s flagrant foul, so the rematch carried a little extra edge before the first basket.

Who else has done this as a teenager?

Only Durant, and the gap tells you how rare the line is. Durant posted his 40-10-5 game in the final game of the 2007-08 season for the Seattle SuperSonics, Reuters reports, and in the 18 years since, no teenager had matched it until Monday. The NBA itself posted the stat line after the game, and the comparison is the point: Durant was 19 and in his rookie season, Flagg is 19 and in his second, and the two of them are the whole list.

That is also why the night matters beyond one box score. Teenage scoring records are usually owned outright by LeBron James, and Flagg is now taking them one at a time rather than waiting his turn. Luka Doncic is putting up his own historic numbers in Los Angeles this season, but Doncic never did this as a teenager either.

What other teenager records is Flagg rewriting?

Several, and they are stacking up fast. This was his fifth 40-point game as a teenager, the most in NBA history, Basketball Network reports. It was his seventh game with at least 35 points as a teenager, tying LeBron James. USA Today adds that it was his 14th game with at least 30 points before turning 20, and only LeBron, with 20 such games, has more. In April, during his rookie season, Flagg scored 51 against Orlando, making him the youngest player in NBA history to reach 50 points.

The season averages back it up. He is averaging 24 points, 6.6 rebounds and 7.0 assists per game, Basketball Network reports, after winning Rookie of the Year with averages of 21 points and 6.7 rebounds. Dallas is 7-4 with three straight wins, a team nobody expected to contend, and its best player is still a teenager. Irving, who missed all of last season rehabbing an ACL injury, scored 35 beside him on Monday, and the two of them combined for 78 points.

How did Dallas win the game?

By surviving the last minute rather than controlling it. Irving’s seventh three gave Dallas the lead in the fourth, Reuters reports, and Flagg’s jumper and free throws stretched it to 116-108, but Indiana kept coming. Siakam finished with 29 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, and the Pacers had the ball with a chance to tie in the final seconds before Martin’s steal ended it. The Mavericks improved to 7-4, and the win was their third in a row.

The context is the roster around him. Dallas has reshaped itself around Flagg since last season, waiving 12-year veteran Dwight Powell as part of the turnover, and the bet is that a 19-year-old can carry a franchise while he is still setting its records. Monday was the clearest evidence yet that the bet is paying off.

What happens next for Flagg?

The record chase has a deadline, and it is a birthday. Flagg turns 20 on December 21, Basketball Network notes, so he has a few more weeks to add to the teenage record book before the window closes for good. Every 30-point game extends the run that only LeBron has beaten, and every 40-point game extends a record he already owns outright. The Mavericks, meanwhile, have to keep winning while their best player is still a teenager, because the rest of the league has now seen what the record book already knew: there are two names on this list, and one of them is 19.