Meet Cooper Flagg, the next ‘White Duke villain’ and a potential No. 1 pick

PORTLAND, Ore. - Cooper Flagg, America’s most coveted teenage basketball player, faced the biggest decision of his decade-long ascent from central Maine to the top of NBA draft boards.

The 17-year-old prodigy proved to be exceptionally ambitious in rising from rural Newport, which is closer to Canada going northwest or northeast, than it is to Boston, which is 200 miles south. After winning a state championship as a freshman, Flagg transferred to Montverde Academy, a basketball powerhouse near Orlando. Even before he led Montverde to a 33-0 record and a national championship this past season, the polished 6-foot-9 forward reclassified so he could graduate in three years and fast track his NBA journey. Now, he needed to pick a college.

Bryant University in Rhode Island was the first school to offer him a scholarship, making a pitch by telephone while he was riding home from an eighth-grade AAU tournament in Massachusetts. All the major schools were interested, including the reigning national champion Connecticut Huskies, who were conveniently located in New England.

But Duke was the school Flagg’s mother, Kelly, had followed so closely as a high school basketball player that she wore No. 32 as a tribute to Christian Laettner. Blue Devils Coach Jon Scheyer built a strong bond with Flagg on the recruiting trail, and the school’s recent track record of No. 1 picks, such as Zion Williamson and Paolo Banchero, was a big draw. What’s more, Jayson Tatum’s season in Durham was a formative viewing experience for Flagg, a third-generation Boston Celtics fan.

There was one catch: Duke is Duke, for better and worse.

“We definitely had that conversation with Cooper and explained the gravity of the situation,” Kelly Flagg said. “If you choose this school, you’re about to be the greatest, hated White Duke villain.”

Thanks to his highflying offense, hard-nosed defense and competitive drive, Flagg is the top prospect in the 2025 NBA draft class and has overshadowed this year’s relatively weak crop, which will be in the spotlight when the annual draft lottery is held Sunday afternoon to determine which team will get the top pick next month. If Flagg is selected first next year as expected, he will become the first White American No. 1 pick since Indiana’s Kent Benson in 1977.

“That’s a surreal feeling, knowing that’s history in a way,” Flagg said. “I definitely take pride in that, but I take even more pride in coming from Maine. [Going first] is something every kid dreams of. I’m definitely working toward that.”

Duke, he concluded, would best prepare him for the challenges of NBA life. Playing on that stage was worth the stereotypes and the heckling.

“Bring it,” Kelly Flagg remembered her son saying at the family meeting. “He’s always been fueled by negativity from the opposition. Every gym he went to his freshman year, he heard the ‘overrated’ chants. Then he would do something spectacular, and the chant would end abruptly. That’s just his personality. If you’re a basketball player, the color of your skin shouldn’t make a difference. If he can play, he can play.”

Born and raised to hoop

Make no mistake: Flagg can play.

Last month, Utah’s Danny Ainge, Boston’s Brad Stevens and Toronto’s Masai Ujiri were among the well-known NBA executives who sat on unpadded bleachers at a suburban Oregon high school to watch Flagg practice before the Nike Hoop Summit showcase game.

Flagg soared for dunks and chase-down blocks, but he also called out plays like an assistant coach, raced end-to-end in transition with no letup, turned down contested shots to make the extra pass and defended all five positions. He did the big things that go viral on social media and the little things that make coaches and scouts salivate. In his last season at Montverde, he averaged 16.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.7 blocks and 1.6 steals.

“I’ve faced every defense you can name,” Flagg said. “Honestly, I like when teams throw a double team at me because I’m going to find the open man. I’m not a forcer. I’m trying to make the right play. And playing hard makes up for a lot of mistakes.”

At a time when international players have won the past six NBA MVP awards, Flagg has emerged as an all-world talent who blends modern versatility with old-school fundamentals. In many ways, he defies NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s concerns that the American developmental system overemphasizes playing games at the expense of practicing and produces NBA rookies who aren’t team-oriented players or effective defenders.

“The highlights don’t really do [Flagg] justice for how good of a basketball player he is,” said Banchero, the 2022 No. 1 pick and an all-star forward for the Orlando Magic. “His instincts for the game are elite. He’ll get a block, throw a pass, run the floor, get back on defense and make another play. His motor is 100 percent at all times. He’s a leader, and he’ll do whatever it takes to win. He’s not worried about getting 30 [points]. He’s out there trying to win and trying to dominate. That’s why he’ll be the No. 1 pick.”

Perhaps it helped that Flagg was raised way off the traditional basketball map. His local high school, Nokomis Regional High, shares its name with a Native American character in a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, and it draws its 650 students from eight nearby towns. Both sides of his family go way back in Newport, where everybody knows everybody in the town of 3,100 people. The Flagg boys, who enjoyed hunting deer and ice fishing, were supported by an extended community of family friends their parents dubbed “The Village.”

Ralph and Kelly Flagg started dating when Kelly was in high school, and she likes to joke she picked her partner because his 6-9 height was essential to raising a basketball family. Kelly perfected Kevin McHale’s patented up-and-under move as a high school standout before playing on the wing at the University of Maine in the late-1990s. Ralph was a traditional post player for Eastern Maine Community College.

The couple taught their three sons - Cooper; his twin brother, Ace; and their older brother, Hunter - that Michael Jordan was the greatest player of all time and Larry Bird’s work ethic was worthy of emulation. Flagg’s grandmother hung a Bird poster on her kitchen wall, and his parents encouraged him to study tapes of Boston’s 1986 title run and watch “Hoosiers” to understand the connection between unselfishness and winning.

When it came time for organized basketball, Flagg had enough natural talent and size as a second-grader to play against fourth-graders. His parents quickly concluded he could handle more challenging tests, so they signed him up for an AAU team, where he played against competition that was three years older. Being the youngest on the court often put Flagg in position to be the ballhandler, helping him avoid a limiting existence as a one-dimensional big man.

Sensing their son’s eagerness to learn, the Flaggs immersed him in the local basketball community, encouraged him to build out a well-rounded game and sought coaches who would focus on skill work and accountability.

“He grew up as a little kid literally sleeping in the stands during [high school] tournament games,” Ralph Flagg said. “He’s always had coaches who got after him. He loves that. He doesn’t want someone who is going to be easy on him and tell him he’s great. He wants someone who is telling him what he’s doing wrong and what he needs to work on.”

For a while, that someone was Kelly, who took a hands-on role with her son’s development and served as an assistant coach for his Maine United AAU team. To reduce family friction, Kelly reached a parent swap agreement with Maine United Coach Andy Bedard and his son, Kaden: Bedard would give Flagg instructions during games, while she would advise Kaden. Still, Flagg wore No. 32 as a tribute to his mother.

“We definitely don’t coddle,” Kelly Flagg said. “We give honest feedback, not criticism, unless he asks for it. I stopped talking to him about basketball skills after sixth grade, and we talked about attitude, effort, demeanor and not showing your emotions in a negative way. I definitely don’t like when he talks to officials. You’ll hear me chirp at him to move on to the next play.”

By the time Flagg and his brothers led Nokomis to its first boys’ basketball state title in 2022, a pattern had emerged: The higher he climbed, the more he wanted to climb even higher.

“People might say you outgrow your area,” Flagg said. “Growing up, it was rough and tumble with my brothers. Scrapping it out in the driveway. Playing one-on-one all day long in the summer. [My life now] is never going to be the same as living down the road from my friends, going outside after school, running through town and riding bikes. I’m going to miss things like that, but I’m very focused on getting better.”

Despite some initial reluctance about splintering the family unit, Flagg and Ace chose Montverde, which has molded a long line of NBA players, including 2021 No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham. Flagg clicked with Coach Kevin Boyle’s hard-charging style and was pushed at practice by a team full of Division I-caliber talent.

Once it became clear he was still dominant against top-level high school competition, he decided to reclassify and graduate in three years. The Flaggs moved to Florida so they could spend his final season of high school together, realizing adulthood was coming more quickly than expected.

“He’s always been a type-A perfectionist,” Kelly Flagg said. “He could have four-peated [as Maine state champions], but how would that help him get to the next level? … The decision to reclassify wasn’t about going to college early so he could get [name, image and likeness money], even though that’s what people think. It was about him pushing himself to take the leap.”

Durham and beyond

As his time at Duke approaches, Flagg appears to have more in common with recent one-and-done stars such as Tatum, Williamson and Banchero than he does with Laettner, JJ Redick and other Blue Devils villains from a bygone era.

His athleticism is extraordinary: He bounces high off the court for powerful dunks, moves quickly side-to-side while guarding smaller players, flies into traffic for contested rebounds and loves to push the pace in transition. Though he plays with intensity, Flagg’s goal is to help lead Duke to its first national championship since 2015, not antagonize rival fans.

His multifaceted game has been compared to those of Andrei Kirilenko, Kevin Garnett and Paul George; Flagg, who said he feels comfortable playing anywhere from two guard to small-ball center, has studied Tatum’s smooth perimeter scoring and Magic forward Jonathan Isaac’s wrecking-ball defense. At Montverde, Flagg examined shot chart data and refined his outside shooting mechanics, knowing he will spend most of his time on the perimeter in the space-obsessed NBA.

“I’m an inside-out scorer,” Flagg said. “I was mostly in the paint and midrange when I was a freshman because I was a lot bigger than everyone in Maine. I’ve been expanding my game ever since and working on my three-point shot to get [better] consistency and expand [my range].”

The biggest lingering question is whether Flagg will evolve into a lead offensive initiator - which could require some development as a ballhandler - or settle in as a secondary scorer. Either way, his defense will be central given his rare combination of intelligence, shot-blocking and lateral quickness.

French phenom Victor Wembanyama arrived last year as the prospect of a generation, setting an unfair standard for the teenagers following in his wake. Nevertheless, Flagg projects as a bankable cornerstone capable of one day lifting an organization’s fortunes. For rebuilding teams that may not land a franchise-changing talent in this year’s lottery, he should be worth the wait.

“My life has been a blur these last three years, but I’ve never thought it needs to slow down,” Flagg said. “I’m making decisions that are best to achieve my goals of making it to the NBA and having a long career. I’m trying to follow the path I’ve seen people take before.”