MAVS NEWS:

[F Gump]

I have some doubts how effective this will be early in his career, especially without playing with a guy like Kyrie.   Although if he can grow and thrive in this role, it opens up so many more roster building directions.  )

I don't have any disagreements with what you are saying -- but I would suggest that the Mavs themselves probably don't either. As I'm reading it, their planning for CF includes putting him in roles that they know he CAN'T yet handle, with the hope and belief that he will learn to handle them and perhaps even excel in those roles eventually. 

With the talent pool the Mavs are working with, if I was the GM or coach, I would be obsessed with the 80's era Celtics, because I see an incredible amount of similarities with that great team. The C's really didn't have what you would call a PG (at their peak, they had 2 ball-handling SG's or combo guards of the same ilk as Kyrie or DAR, and who regularly had lots of questions and doubts about them, even among C's fans). Their lineup also usually featured 2 bigs whose only job was to pound you to death on the inside with dunks, putbacks, short shots, postups, etc and who were so good at it that 3 of them reached the HOF (Parish, McHale, Walton). 

The key, of course, was Larry Bird, who could do it all and do it well. Flagg is not yet at that level, of course (because who is?) BUT he has shown an aptitude of doing it all and doing it well at his level, plus a track record of learning quickly to raise that standard when forced to do so by a new level of challenge. So to that end and become that team, I would have an everyday goal of turning an 18-year-old Flagg into what the C's got with a 23-year-old Larry Bird as soon as they can (but well before CF turns 23). Larry Bird wasn't "LARRY BIRD" when he was 18. 

Ball-handling drills, shooting drills, game situations that might overwhelm but force you to get way better, whatever it takes, to make Flagg become THAT guy, because I think he can. (I think Luka could have, also, but didn't want to be - he wanted to be the guy who shoots the most shots rather than makes them at the highest efficiency no matter what you do to try to stop him). With Bird on that team, Bird played anything from the ball-handler to the PF, and changed everything. I think CF has the tools, and he might have the mind and the drive too.