Duke men’s basketball's 12-game win streak has seen freshman phenom Cooper Flagg take massive strides on the offensive side of his game. In The Chronicle’s latest edition of Point-Counterpoint, our writers discuss how high they believe Flagg will fly in the NBA:
Point: Flagg’s offensive development proves he can be the first option on an NBA Championship winning team
Flagg started off the season as the clear focal point of Duke’s offense, but the unit as a whole struggled in a few early games. The Blue Devils ran their gameplan through the then 17-year old phenom, but as the Newport, Maine, native dealt with inefficient shooting early, so did the team’s offense on the whole.
In the early season marquee matchup against Kentucky, Flagg shot 9-of-19 overall including 1-of-5 from three, and also turned the ball over twice in the last 12 seconds of a tight game. For a moment, Duke’s offense didn’t look great and critics even began to suggest that the moment seemed too big for Flagg.
Throughout the rest of the Blue Devils’ big early-season matchups, wins against Arizona and Auburn and a loss to Kansas, Flagg shot a combined 22-of-49, scoring at less than a 45% rate. It seemed like the freshman would be a defensive freak of nature with bright spots in his offensive game — especially his ability to get to the rim — but his jump shot would prevent him from becoming an elite scoring option.
But then, Flagg fixed his jump shot. In Duke’s first game back on the court after the holiday season, Flagg shot 9-of-14 against Virginia Tech and totaled 24 points. Pretty good, but could he do it again? Turns out he could, again, again and again.
In the Blue Devils’ five most recent games, Flagg has shot 62.9% from the field while averaging 25.2 points per game. That stretch includes a 10-of-18 mark from beyond the arc and 38-of-43 from the free throw line.
These numbers are impressive for anyone in college basketball, as the 25.2 points per game would be the highest in the country if replicated over the course of a full season. Looking at them through the lens of Flagg, the 18-year-old who appeared overmatched on offense a mere three months prior, they’re incredible.
During his recent stretch of dominance, Flagg became the youngest player ever to score 40 points in a NCAA men’s basketball game, dropping 42 against Notre Dame. Watching Duke this season, it has been clear that the game has slowed down for Flagg on the offensive end of the court; he’s simply understanding basketball on a level he hadn’t before. As the season continues, that progress will continue, until the star enters the NBA Draft, likely to become the number one overall pick.
To me, there’s no doubt that Flagg will be at least a great player in the NBA. His defensive prowess should carry him to that on it’s own, and his offensive growth over the course of this season has shown promising signs of his ability to adjust to more complex basketball. However, is Flagg good enough to become the first option on an NBA Championship winning team? The last number one overall pick to win a championship was Andrew Wiggins, but to find the last one to win as a number one option, you have to go all the way back to 2003 when Lebron James was selected first overall.
It’s worth mentioning that two other former number one overall picks in Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis won championships with James as “1B” options. Before James, the only other number one overall picks to win championships since 1983 are Tim Duncan, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon.
Basically, if you want to be a number one overall pick and win an NBA championship as a first option, you have to be an inner-circle Hall of Famer. If you want to win one as a 1B option, you’ll have to settle for the outer-circle.
Flagg will likely be drafted to an organization that’s in rough shape, as most teams that pick at the top of the draft are. However, after watching the massive steps he’s taken in such a short time this season, if anyone can drag a team from worst to first, it’ll be Cooper Flagg. -Myles Powicki
Counterpoint: Flagg won’t be as offensively dominant against NBA defenders
It’s one of the worst-kept secrets in basketball that Flagg will likely be the number one overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. Yes, he certainly has competition — Rutgers’ superstar freshmen Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey deserve at least some consideration — but neither prospect has received the same degree of hype and scrutiny as Flagg.
So, let’s assume the Blue Devil will hear his name called first on draft night. Regarding potential homes, teams like the Brooklyn Nets, Washington Wizards and Utah Jazz come to mind, all of whom are in dire need of a generational blue-chip talent to breathe life back into their franchise. That is the ultimate goal of having the number one overall pick, right?
As it turns out, not necessarily. Just this past year, the Atlanta Hawks selected French forward Zaccharie Risacher with the first overall pick despite a perceived lack in ceiling and All-Star potential. While Flagg is leaps and bounds more complete a prospect than Risacher, questions of a similar nature linger: Can he lead a championship team as its number one scorer?
A quick look at Flagg’s season thus far tells one side of the story; Duke’s star freshman has put together quite the campaign from a statistical perspective — averaging 19.2 points, 8.1 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game on 60% true shooting. Compared to former Blue Devil and reigning NBA champion Jayson Tatum’s lone season in Durham, Flagg already appears well ahead of where his favorite NBA player was at the same age.
Yet, Flagg very much benefits from playing on one of the deepest teams in the country. Beyond the Montverde Academy product, opponents have to closely defend the three-point line from Duke’s elite shooters in Kon Knueppel, Tyrese Proctor and Isaiah Evans, while also accounting for the towering Khaman Maluach in the paint. Coach Jon Scheyer’s surplus of talent has operated side-by-side to a near-flawless standard — something Flagg may sorely miss at the next level.
Flagg also achieves a significant amount of his scoring from utilizing his advantages in size, speed and strength. Unsurprisingly, most college basketball players, upperclassmen and graduate students included, can’t compete with the freshman’s pure physicality. Often, when either the Blue Devils’ or Flagg’s individual offense is in a rut, Duke hunts for a smaller defender to match up against Flagg.
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However, there’s a bit of a difference between an ACC guard and elite NBA defenders like Alex Caruso or Dyson Daniels — and that’s if Flagg can successfully draw “mismatches” with those smaller players. With the NBA’s ever-increasing infatuation with position-less basketball, the pros will be ready to match Flagg’s athleticism with their own bevy of wing defenders. While I fully believe he will adapt and remain highly productive in those situations, it just won’t be nearly as easy as it is now.
With all this being said, my concern for Flagg’s development as a leading scorer on a championship team boils down to a single area: his capacity for self-creation. Even if the freshman has outproduced Tatum, the former Blue Devil was more dangerous as a three-level scorer who could score from just about anywhere on the court.
Flagg, on the other hand, hasn’t necessarily displayed the same scoring “juice.” It’s far from uncommon to see Flagg being forced into contested looks not conducive to efficient offense. He has mastered a handful of moves — the one-dribble pull-up jumper being one of them — but any team hoping to unlock his offensive potential will have to bank on his bag growing much deeper.
Moreover, the continued development of his three-point shot will determine just how far Flagg can go. Despite the Maine native’s 54.5% from deep since turning 18, many of those 3-pointers have been of the wide-open catch-and-shoot variety.
In the NBA, you can be a prolific scorer who regularly dominates a section of the floor — take Demar Derozan, for instance — but if you can’t create for yourself on the perimeter and your last name isn’t “Antetokounmpo,” winning at a high level will be almost impossible to achieve.
Make no mistake, I consider Cooper Flagg to be a remarkable talent: I just have too many doubts about his individual scoring to place him into a tier where only a few of the elite players in the NBA reside. -Alex Min