Duke men’s basketball owns a spot in the national spotlight, yet the 2024-25 Blue Devils are poised to receive a nearly unprecedented amount of attention. Viewership of even nonconference games will likely skyrocket. The team’s performance will be discussed in circles that traditionally overlook college basketball. Coaches and players alike will be scrutinized for any mistake, glorified for every success.
Freshman forward Cooper Flagg’s commitment to Duke last October forever changed the narrative surrounding head coach Jon Scheyer’s third year at the helm. As the consensus No. 1 recruit in the nation and first freshman to be named Preseason All-American in four years, Flagg begins this season with an avalanche of expectations on his back.
“I don’t know if we’ve ever had a 17-year-old with as much attention around him,” Scheyer said in a September media availability. “A lot of it rightfully so, [because of] the high school career he’s had and what he’s done.”
The national spotlight would have undoubtedly fixated on Flagg based on the merits of his high school career alone; few teenagers can boast about a 33-0 senior season, a national championship and National High School Player of the Year recognition.
But the excitement around the Newport, Maine, native truly exploded after videos circulated of Flagg training against the USA Men’s National Team before the Olympics. After all, playing on the same court as LeBron James and Steph Curry, swishing threes over the top of former Blue Devil Brandon Ingram and finishing through contact against five-time NBA All-Defensive Team selection Bam Adebayo are not your typical 17-year-old summer activities.
“I was out in Vegas during the scrimmage,” Duke associate head coach Chris Carrawell said. “You had LeBron, Steph and Tatum and all these guys out there, and for a three-minute stretch, [Flagg] was the best player on the floor. It wasn’t [just] the fact that he played well. It was the fact that if you didn’t know who he was, you would have said ‘Oh, who’s that guy? He plays for the Raptors, right?’ He just looks like those guys physically.”
The hype surrounding Flagg has inevitably drawn comparisons to Zion Williamson’s 2018-19 campaign with the Blue Devils. Besides earning National Player of the Year and consensus first-team All-American honors, Williamson’s jaw-dropping displays of sheer athleticism captivated the nation. Celebrities like acclaimed movie director Spike Lee, MLB Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. and even former President Barack Obama flocked to Cameron Indoor Stadium just to catch a glimpse of the Spartanburg, S.C., native in Duke Blue.
Flagg is widely projected to follow in Williamson’s footsteps and be selected first overall in next year’s NBA Draft, even before he’s played a single official minute of college basketball. Yet, the comparisons between Flagg and Williamson should end there. Not only are they two completely distinct players, but each arrived in Durham under wildly different circumstances.
It’s worth remembering that before Williamson’s first and only campaign with the Blue Devils, the New Orleans Pelicans star was not even considered the best freshman on the roster. That distinction went to current Toronto Raptors guard R.J. Barrett, the consensus No. 1 recruit in the nation and highest-ranked Duke prospect until Flagg’s commitment. Williamson only cemented himself as the Blue Devils’ most anticipated star after the team began its preseason activities.
“After we got back from our foreign tour in Canada, it was ‘Zion Mania,’” Carawell remembered. “At that point I had been around Duke since 1996 … but I had never seen anything like Zion. He was incredible and everybody wanted to be around him.”
“I won’t say Cooper is at [Zion’s] level yet, but when a non-basketball fan at the grocery store asks [about] ‘that Cooper Flagg guy’, and you’re like ‘you don’t watch basketball everyday,’ … that’s how you know the interest [is there],” he said.
The furious frenzy surrounding Williamson arose mostly as a result of his thunderous dunks, ferocious blocks and electrifying style of play. Conversely, the excitement around Flagg stems mostly from his all-around game and potential as an NBA prospect. He isn’t as flashy as Williamson; Flagg’s strengths are much more subtle and his impact on the court stretches far beyond what appears on a highlight reel.
It would be wrong to overlook the freshman’s physical gifts; Flagg’s 6-foot-9 frame, 40-inch vertical and impressive athleticism make him a formidable force even without the added intangibles. What’s more, the forward’s ball handling and shooting abilities, while still developing, are both exceptional for someone his size.
However, it’s the little things Flagg excels at, particularly on the defensive end, which truly differentiate him from other highly-touted recruits. Scheyer aptly described the importance of Flagg’s intangible attributes.
“The first thing for me is his competitiveness all the time. When you see a guy that doesn’t turn his competitiveness on and off, he doesn’t turn on and off how hard he works, [that] stands out to you,” he said. “The second thing is his feel. He prides himself on knowing the game, on picking things up right away … You just have to tell him once, and then he’s got it.”
Boasting elite defensive instincts, an uncanny shot-blocking ability and an intensity and ferocity reminiscent of the very best defenders to play the game, Flagg projects as a nightmarish matchup for even the best scorers. The Blue Devil forward also possesses an unteachable knack for making the right pass or taking the right shot, to the great benefit of both himself and his teammates.
However, the Montverde Academy product is not yet a finished product offensively, so Flagg probably won’t average near 22.6 points per game or shoot 68% from the field, as Williamson did with Duke. It’s possible Flagg won’t even be the Blue Devils’ leading scorer, which harps back to the second thing comparisons between Flagg and Williamson miss.
While Williamson, alongside Barrett, was largely entrusted to bear the bulk of Duke’s offensive responsibility on an extremely top-heavy squad, Scheyer’s 2024-25 team is perfectly constructed to relieve that pressure from Flagg’s shoulders. Returning guards Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster each bring elite playmaking to the fold, while the rest of Scheyer’s freshman class features a cornucopia of elite 3-point shooters, each more than capable of both spacing the floor and lighting up the scoreboard. As such, Flagg will be free to flourish in every aspect of his game beyond what jumps out on the box score.
Duke’s 103-47 exhibition rout of Arizona State Sunday illustrated this point; Despite only amassing nine points on the night, Flagg delivered a stout defensive performance while creating numerous opportunities for his teammates to shine offensively, resulting in a 56-point victory and a staggering +34 plus-minus for the Newport native.
The Blue Devils will likely face some setbacks this year, sprouting reactionary narratives that are as easy to predict as they will be flawed in nature. If Scheyer’s squad loses a game in which Flagg does not impress offensively, opposing fans and journalists will scramble to their keyboards, eager to label the freshman overrated and a mere product of the Duke media machine. But if these critics truly pay attention to Flagg’s performances, they will realize searching for Flagg’s impact purely on the statsheet grossly oversimplifies what makes him one of the most anticipated prospects in recent memory.
“Very soon, we’re going to be playing national T.V. games outside of Cameron,” Scheyer said. “I can tell you Cooper’s wired for it, just like Zion was. I think the thing everybody should understand is he’s still 17, going through an incredibly difficult schedule [with] a lot on his shoulders. There’s gonna be moments where he has growing pains … It’s par for the course. He’s gotta control the things he can control.”
The gargantuan expectations surrounding Flagg this season, while not undeserved, may be misplaced. If Williamson was akin to a blockbuster movie, easily palatable and immensely marketable, Flagg compares more favorably to a timeless classic. One is not necessarily better than the other, but modern audiences may struggle to appreciate the latter. Flagg, for one, has adopted a clever perspective to deal with the cacophony of attention and scrutiny he has already begun to receive.
“As far as hype goes, I think that’s something you learn to deal with,” Flagg said in September. “And for me it’s just about playing basketball … There’s always eyes everywhere we’re going on campus. When we first got here some of the students even were kind of going crazy. But to me, it’s just like a compliment in a way. It shows all the hard work that you’ve put in over time.”
Blue Devil fans should get excited about both Flagg and the team’s chances of capturing a sixth national title this year. With a bonafide superstar in Flagg and a roster loaded at every position, there’s no limit to what Duke can accomplish. However, the Cameron Crazies should reframe their expectations about what the freshman brings to the table. Cooper Flagg is not the next Zion Williamson. Don’t expect a flurry of 360-degree dunks and 20-plus point-per-game performances. Instead, watch closely for Flagg’s impact on every aspect of the game, and you won’t be disappointed with what you find.
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Rodrigo Amare is a Trinity sophomore and assistant Blue Zone editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.