Meet Cooper Flagg, the NBA No1 Draft prospect, 17, who has made history and preparing LeBron James for Paris Olympics
COOPER Flagg seems destined to be the NBA's next big thing.
The 6-foot-9 forward will turn 18 a few days before LeBron James celebrates his 40th birthday in late December.
But they have already squared off on the court with Flagg helping Team USA prepare for the 2024 Paris Olympics at a mini-camp in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Maine native — who will play for Duke this fall — has been the projected No. 1 overall pick of the 2025 NBA Draft for a while.
He earned the generational talent label even before leading Montverde Academy to a 33-0 record and a national title this year, averaging 16.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.6 steals, and 2.7 blocks.
Flagg is developing into a triple-double threat who can make an impact on both ends of the floor.
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No wonder USA Basketball thought his talents could be of use to Team USA and asked the forward to wear James and Co. out at pre-Olympics training camp as part of the select team.
"I was pretty surprised just because it's not like a normal thing," Flagg said of the invitation, which he received in a call with Team USA executive director Grant Hill.
Flagg became the first college player to be part of the select team — typically made of young NBA stars — since Marcus Smart and Doug McDermott in 2013.
At the time, though, Smart had just won the Big 12 Player of the Year award in his freshman year at Oklahoma State while McDermott had earned back-to-back consensus All-American honors after 110 games for Creighton.
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Meanwhile, Flagg scrimmaged with the US national team three months before making his college basketball debut.
That didn't stop him from "kicking butt," as select team coach Jamahl Mosley put it.
Social media clips of the Duke freshman torching NBA superstars in Monday's scrimmage quickly went viral.
They showed him knocking down 3s over Anthony Davis, making Jrue Holiday tangled up with his handles, and finishing a putback over Bam Adebayo for an and-1.
All three earned All-Defensive honors in 2023-24.
After a tight game, Team USA eventually took a 74-73 win.
Notably, Flagg's teammates — all of whom had already played in the NBA — kept seeking him out in an attempt to beat the Olympians down the wire.
"To be able to do what he did, not even playing a college game, let alone an NBA game, there's no fear," said Miami Heat wing Jaime Jaquez Jr., who played for the select team.
"It's relentless. And the thing that you can tell about him is that he just has a knack and the will to win.
"He doesn't need the ball. He just finds a way to it. And the ball finds its way to him.
"That's something that you can't teach. He's just got a great feel for the game."
Flagg told his father, Ralph — who attended the three-day scrimmages in Vegas — that he was a little starstruck at first having stepped on the floor to see he was guarding James.
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The hoops prodigy wasn't overwhelmed for too long, though — proving that he, simply, belonged.
"He was like, 'OK, I guess we’re going to start doing this,'" Ralph Flagg recalled.