Cooper Flagg won NBA Rookie of the Year in April, and by September his own former head coach is done being careful with the comparison. Jason Kidd, who ran the Mavericks bench through Flagg's debut season before Dallas moved on from him, says the 19-year-old is tracking toward LeBron James level greatness. Kidd is a Hall of Fame point guard who spent four years coaching LeBron in Los Angeles, so this isn't a talking head reaching for a headline. It's a man who has stood next to the actual bar telling you where the kid's head is.

Here's the part that makes it interesting: Kidd is out of a job in Dallas and Flagg is still in the building, which means the endorsement costs Kidd nothing and pays Flagg's next contract slot everything. Rookie-scale deals are capped by the league; national comparisons to LeBron are not. Dallas gets a max extension case built for them before Flagg has played a second season. Somebody in the front office already knows the exact date that extension window opens.