Mavericks Unleash New Starting Five With Kyrie Irving and Cooper Flagg

The Dallas Mavericks are finally rolling out the lineup everyone has been waiting to see, and it only took a massive knee rehab and some lottery luck to make it happen.

On Wednesday night against the Houston Rockets, Dallas is officially starting Kyrie Irving, Max Christie, Cooper Flagg, P.J. Washington, and Daniel Gafford.

"Underdog NBA reported the lineup alert on Twitter."

This is the kind of starting five that looks like a video game roster where you turned off the salary cap and just started mashing the trade override button.

The biggest story here is Irving. He is officially back in the mix after tearing his left ACL back in March 2025 and missing a massive chunk of time. Getting his shot creation back on the floor completely changes the geometry of this offense.

Then you have Flagg, the 2025 first-overall pick, slotting in at small forward. He spent part of his rookie campaign dealing with a midfoot sprain that ruined his All-Star weekend, but he still proved he can easily drop 20 points a night when healthy.

Max Christie gets the nod at shooting guard to provide some perimeter balance, while Daniel Gafford is anchoring the middle to clean up the glass over Dereck Lively II.

For anyone staring at the prop markets tonight, this rotation is going to be a complete headache to figure out. Irving usually demands a sky-high usage rate, but Flagg is too talented to just stand in the corner and watch.

Dallas desperately needs this group to click right out of the gate. They are coming off a brutal 135-111 blowout loss to the Atlanta Hawks, and the defense looked completely lost.

We will find out quickly if this five-man unit can actually get stops, or if Houston is about to turn Wednesday night into an absolute track meet.