Duke’s star freshman Cooper Flagg has been the consensus top pick in the upcoming NBA draft since before the season started. During the NCAA men’s basketball tournament this month, the 6-foot-9 wing from Maine has done nothing to tamp down the sky-high expectations.
In the NBA, “he may be your third-best scorer, yet your most valuable player in the sense of everything he does,” said a college scout for an NBA team, who asked not to be identified because his team, like every other in the league, does not allow scouts to comment publicly on prospects.
After scoring 14 points in Duke’s opening victory of the tournament, and 18 in the second round, Flagg produced such a bravura 30-point performance Thursday in Newark, New Jersey, that it pushed the top-seeded Blue Devils past Arizona and left his coach talking in superlatives.
Flagg appeared comfortably in command during the high stakes, single-elimination tournament while adding a season-high seven assists, plus six rebounds and three blocks.
“That was one of the best tournament performances I’ve ever coached or been a part of,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer, who notably played on a Blue Devils team in 2010 that won the NCAA championship, during his postgame press conference.
Said Arizona forward Henry Veesaar: “He’s a freak athlete.”
Halfway through the tournament, Flagg has averaged 20.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 6.0 assists, shooting 47% from the field while turning the ball over just four times in 88 minutes. Given the ankle injury Flagg suffered less than a week before the tournament began hasn’t stopped him, the next, logical question is whether anything, or anybody, will be able to.
“The biggest thing that stands out is he can impact the game without scoring,” the scout said. “That’s not his main thing. It’s the defense, playmaking. Without dominating the ball and without scoring he has a huge impact on the game.”
Flagg’s tournament performances have confirmed the potential that NBA evaluators have expected to see since July 2024, when Flagg arrived in Las Vegas to play with a select group of the best young U.S. basketball players.
This wasn’t your typical offseason pickup game, because their opponent was USA Basketball’s senior men’s team as it practiced ahead of the Paris Olympics.
In front of a private practice watched by a crowd of a few hundred agents, coaches, team and league executives, Flagg, who was only 17 at the time, held his own. He swished a pull-up three-pointer in front of NBA All-Star Anthony Davis and soared past another top defender, Bam Adebayo, for a put-back basket.
“Hell of a player,” future Hall of Fame star Kevin Durant said during a press conference after the scrimmage. “Seventeen years old, coming in here and playing like he’s a vet almost.”
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The NBA has attempted to disincentivize teams from intentionally weakening themselves, and thus the league’s product. Until 2018, the team with the worst record was awarded a 25% chance of landing the No. 1 draft pick. Since 2019, however, the league has flattened the top-pick odds, awarding the three worst teams the same 14% chance. Atlanta won the No. 1 pick last year despite ending the 2024 season with a 3% chance of doing so.
That hasn’t kept teams from flailing for Flagg, the ACC’s player of the year and a candidate for national player of the year. Not since Carmelo Anthony led Syracuse to the 2003 NCAA championship in his lone college season has a freshman acted as the engine of a national title contender to this degree. After shooting 32% on three-pointers through his first 20 games, he has shot 41% in his last 14, showing the ability to stretch the floor that NBA teams covet. Over the same 14-game span since Feb. 1, Flagg has produced more steals (20) and blocks (19) than turnovers (18).
“His shooting has gotten so much better,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said in his postgame press conference Thursday. “He makes three of five from three today, nine of 10 from the free-throw line. And just his ability to playmake.”
The combination has led fans to salivate about what Flagg might do next. By early April, Duke could stand as college basketball’s champion. By June’s NBA draft, the league’s biggest losers in the standings hope it will be their turn to celebrate.
