Arguably the worst-kept secret in sports history, the Dallas Mavericks made it official on Wednesday night when they selected Duke superstar Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.

From the moment the Mavericks won the NBA Draft Lottery on May 12 until Wednesday, this moment was never in doubt. But the conspiracy theorists believe that Flagg became a Maverick long before May 12.

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Dallas shocked the sports world in early February when it traded, seemingly, its franchise player Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in a three-team deal that also involved the Utah Jazz. In return, the Mavericks received Anthony Davis. But did they also receive the first pick in the 2025 NBA Draft so they could select Flagg? That's the question that has been circulating the Internet. 

For his part, Flagg did not care to address Internet conspiracy theorists when OutKick asked him on Wednesday night.

"I don't know what to say about that," Flagg said with a chuckle. "I have no insider information if that's what you're looking for, but I just feel blessed for the way it all worked out." 

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver essentially denied that to be the case earlier this week when he said on a podcast that he only found out about the Doncic trade hours before the rest of the world did. 

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"Luka is a good example where the teams are very secretive, they're not necessarily tipping us off. We had heard about it before the public, but it was only a matter of hours," Silver said, while also adding that he does not possess the power to veto trades – not that he would have done that, anyway. 

That isn't stopping people from wondering. What are the odds that the Mavericks would trade their best player to the Los Angeles Lakers – the most popular NBA franchise – and three months later hit a less than 2 percent chance to draft a player expected to be the next great league superstar? 

Well, the answer is a 1.8% chance. And that does happen. 

Obviously, the NBA is never going to admit that it rigged a draft lottery and, quite frankly, the chances are quite slim that it did. At the end of the day, Cooper Flagg is now an NBA player for the Dallas Mavericks and has a chance to become the next face of the league. 

The NBA needs it, too, because ratings are declining at a rapid pace. The league desperately wants Flagg to become the next great superstar that draws casual sports fans to professional basketball. Whether he can be that guy remains to be seen.

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MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace expressed sorrow on Tuesday over the Trump administration deporting alleged Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador.

During a recent episode of "The Bulwark" podcast, Wallace mentioned the deportations as the thing that scared her most about President Donald Trump’s second term, saying she was "gutted" when seeing a photo of alleged gang members being housed in a prison in El Salvador.

"I saw the paid ads that Homeland Security was doing in front of the deportees who were now prisoners at CECOT [Terrorism Confinement Center] and I was gutted," she told host Tim Miller. 

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President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act in March to expedite deportations of suspected Tren de Aragua gang members, invoking anger from critics who have said there is insufficient evidence to determine their ties to the gang.

The Department of Homeland Security has defended the deportations, with DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin saying that the migrants sent to CECOT in El Salvador are "actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters, and more" and that the administration is abiding by due process.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in March, "I trust our intelligence agencies and the intelligence individuals that are within the Department of Homeland Security, that the individuals who are there are members and a part of this organization and have worked with them."

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The deportation approach has faced legal challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court barred the Trump administration from deporting migrants without them being given a chance to challenge their designations as criminal gang members in April, and extended that order in May. 

During the interview, Wallace denied there was any evidence whether the people Trump had been trying to deport were gang members.

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"I remember the first day I read about the deportations to El Salvador of the alleged Tren de Aragua members — for whom no evidence was ever presented that they had anything to do with Tren de Aragua," she said. "And I remember saying…  like ‘I wish I didn’t feel so gutted. And I wish I could stop thinking about these guys being scared in El Salvador.’"

After mentioning feeling terrible about seeing the photos that DHS posted of suspected gang members being held at CECOT, the MSNBC host accused the administration of mistreating human beings.

"And I think I’m sometimes scared by how much anguish I feel over how they’re treating human beings. But I think that if you abandon the anguish, then you carry out horrible things against human beings," Wallace said, adding, "I’m scared about how much it bothers me — that so many people are suffering."

When asked for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital, "Cry more, Nicole Wallace. Only a TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome] whack job would be ‘gutted’ that illegal criminal terrorists are being removed from the country but fail to mention the American victims of these heinous criminals."