Cooper Flagg Is Capturing Our Collective Basketball Imagination
It’s easy to see why NBA teams are clamoring for the chance to draft Duke’s star freshman. But first, Flagg has a date in the Final Four—and a chance at college-hoops immortality.
Duke basketball has a YouTube account because hell is real and we are in it. It’s the age of attention and even the most hated basketball program you know must feed the content Kraken. That thing is famished. The Durham Diablos have a number of shows on the feed. Some of the offerings: Duke Blue Planet; the [rolls eyes] Brotherhood Podcast; an all-access player show called Devilish that seems to have stopped around seven months ago. One of the series featured on the channel is called The Film Room. They’ve been doing it (very) off and (rarely) on for six years. Over the course of those half dozen years, there have been a grand total of 11 episodes. You can watch RJ Barrett and Duke assistant Chris Carrawell, Jared McCain and associate head coach Jai Lucas, Mike Krzyzewski and the dude who dyes his hair.
The first eight eps took place in Duke’s actual film room. For the last three, the venue has changed to Duke’s social media hub—the same room they record the aforementioned [rolls eyes again] Brotherhood Podcast—a cobalt collage of old pictures, press clippings, and magazine covers splayed on the walls like some Eiffel 65’d Five Guys. The most recent episode dropped a couple of weeks ago and featured Duke head coach Jon Scheyer talking to Tyrese Proctor and Cooper Flagg. You get to hear an Australian say the word “open,” which is always thrilling. You also get to hear Flagg talk through what may well be the dunk of the year in college basketball, a coast-to-coast mad mash detonation on the head of Pitt’s Guillermo Diaz Graham, whose beautiful name could not save him from becoming a mainstay on Flagg mixtapes from here to eternity.
Flagg: He kind of posted me up, so I was just trying to make a play and get back around him and [they] threw a lazy pass. I got the steal and just pushed it out. Kinda blacked out …
Proctor: I thought you jumped from way too far out.
Scheyer: It’s one of the best finishes I’ve seen in Cameron, ever.
Somewhere, Levance Fields cries.
Flagg is the best player in college basketball and the presumptive pick to go numero uno in the 2025 NBA draft. After reclassifying to arrive on campus a year early, at age 17, Flagg has been even better than advertised, a do-it-all, kill-everything menace on both ends leading a Duke squad that is confusingly fun to watch. Duke teams are not usually fun. They have been juggernauts, disappointments, self-righteous, and successful, but rarely have they been a good time for non-Dukies. But this particular collection has been curated by Scheyer to guard like mad and shoot the shit out of the ball. They are gigantic, well-balanced, and the favorites to cut down the nets in San Antonio—and Flagg’s all-around excellence is the chief reason why.
Duke has mostly rolled through the men’s NCAA tournament so far. The Blue Devils are so full of top-end talent they don’t even need Flagg to be all that dominant to wax teams. Theirs is a luxurious roster, stacked with guys who can shoot and scrap. Khaman Maluach is a wall of infinite terrors. Proctor’s been melting nylon. Kon Knueppel’s last name rhymes with the word nipple. And even though Duke doen’t need Flagg to be otherworldly, he has found time to be just that. Through four March Madness games, the broader basketball-watching public has gotten to see what all the fuss has been about. Flagg’s been beasting. Twenty points, eight rebounds, and five assists per game in the tourney. In the Sweet 16 against Arizona, he became the only Duke player in history to have at least 30 points, five boards, and five assists in an NCAA tournament game. Hard to be the first to do something in a Duke jersey.
“He’s so much more than just a scoring presence,” analyst Jim Jackson said during Duke’s Elite Eight win over Bama this past weekend. “He’s all that you want from a player. He’s unselfish, he connects with his teammates, he plays defense. Also I hate Jason Kidd.”
Flagg’s two most recent performances showed the breadth of his game, the many different ways he can affect winning. Against the Wildcats, his scoring and creation took center stage. The natural from Newport was in full command of his instrument. Threes were falling off the bounce, at a standstill, from the logo. He was putting defenders in the wash and dropping in one-handed lefty hooks, splitting doubles and firing no-looks for assists, finding Maluach for multiple lobs, beating full-court pressure, erasing shots at the rim, and making play-by-play man Brian Anderson scream, “Who else wants to be in the Flagg vortex?”
The freshman sensation didn’t have it going offensively the following round vs. Bama and it led to a relatively underwhelming night compared to the way he blazed through Zona. The Fighting Oats did a good job containing him, caused some trouble by getting inside his handle, scrambled his flow a little, and made him human from an offensive perspective. Some of the passes were just a little off, his rhythm never quite right. But Flagg differs from a lot of past prospects in that he still makes his presence known when the shot’s not falling. The defense, rebounding, and energy are consistent as a sunrise. The combo of him and Maluach from a rim-protection perspective is just absurd. The weak need not apply. Come into the lane wily and strong or your shit’s getting sent.
Effort is a beautiful mask that can reverse blemishes and instill fear. Flagg plays with a trademark motor and an edge that has him flexing more than a chainmailed Scott Steiner. Coaches, scouts, and those in the know speak endlessly of his hyper-competitiveness. He’s a freak of nature when it comes to hustle. Plays with the intensity of a man trying to get his kids back. That combined with his physical tools, there’s a reason Scottie Pippen Sr. is the biggest name in his Comp Cloud. On defense, this man will ruin you.
Still, the game’s not infallible. Flagg can get too wide with his handle and get ripped, can get into the lane without a plan and fire up something silly from time to time. There are a few doubts about his ability to carry an offense and be an elite on-ball defender at the next level. He also needs to wear a bigger T-shirt under his jersey. This has become an epidemic, these tight fit dri-fit smedium undershirts. A pox on the game. Somebody get the boy some baggier sleeves. He doesn’t need to go full Gansey out there—we cannot all be Titans of Style—but something in line with Delonte West at Saint Joe’s or Randolph Childress at Wake would more than suffice. Don’t just be new, look it too.
Things converging. The frontrunner for National Player of the Year, the no. 1 prospect in the NBA draft, the glittering jewel teams at the bottom of the NBA are fast tanking to land, and soon, the brightest spotlight of Flagg’s career: the Final Four. For Duke haters, it’s an opportunity to see if maybe this level of wattage can take some of the starch out of his current stellar standing. For Flagg, it’s an opportunity to pull a Melo, to place a colossal cherry on what would instantly become one of the greatest one-and-done seasons in college basketball history and lock in his legacy as one of the most consequential Duke players of all time.
Beyond that, the ceiling’s a tantalizing mystery. This is a primo prospect with a belly full of a fire. He will significantly up the give-a-shit factor wherever he lands and become the organizational North Star for whichever team winds up at the top of the draft. Will he embrace some type of hair product at the next level? Does he experiment with a pomade or texturizing spray? Or will he become a viable challenger to Austin Reaves for League’s Sweatiest Hair?
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Flagg has a long career ahead and plenty of time to fulfill his basketball destiny. But first, he'll make a chalk-fueled trip to the Riverwalk to play for a national title and college hoops immortality. There’s one more ladder to climb. The net’s waiting.
