God Squad wrote:SeattleJazzFan wrote:cooper flagg and montverde are playing in a tournament in my backyard here in utah tonight - gonna head down there to get a glimpse in person. i'm sure they will embarrass all comers, but it will be fun to see him live.
Let us know how it went.
they were playing a local public school. probably a top 10 team in the state (which isn't saying a lot for playing here in utah), so not a bad team by any means, but they probably don't have one D1 kid on the roster. it was 59-24 at the end of three. montverde put in back ups for the 4th quarter and i want to say the final score was 80-41 or something. bottom line, the utah school completely overmatched from tip off and honestly they don't belong on the same court as montverde.
this isn't the first time I've seen Flagg play, so i'm not judging him on one game, but it was fun to be able to watch up close. he struggled to get his own shot against these scrappy, undersized, but tough kids. on his first foul, he tried to beat his 6'3" defender off the bounce, kid beat him to the spot and drew an offensive foul. about two possessions later he was leading the break, passed at about the FT line, kid stepped in front of him, he ran the kid over and there was no whistle - probably should have been another offensive foul. his points came from, i think three turn around jumpers from the low block while being guarded by much shorter and less athletic players, a couple FTs and a dunk while trailing in transition (i want to say he finished with 10 pts). he struggled to get his own offensively all night - outside of being thrown the ball in the low post and and just shooting over dudes. defensively he was on another level from everybody else on the floor. they had him defending the smallest guy on the floor most of the time (usually a scrappy 5'8" kid who really never tried to do anything offensively other than initiate offense and another kid that was probably 6'1" and played a similar role - neither was the primary PG - but they weren't shooters either), my guess is so he could roam defensively. he probably had about three blocks - they didn't really ever challenge him - and 5 or 6 steals.
my opinion having seen him multiple times in HS and having watched Chet multiple times in HS, they are very similar prospects. both are top 5 defensive players i've ever seen at the HS level and i don't think you can say one is better defensively than the other. Chet has 4 inches (at least) of length on Flagg, but Flagg moves better. defensively it's a wash. Chet was clearly a better shooter - had a better stroke and was simply more of a threat from three - it's not really close. I feel like Chet had more in his bag offensively in general, but Flagg is a better passer. if I'm completely honest, i think Chet was probably a tad better prospect - due to his length and shooting.
It is going to be really interesting to see how Flagg's offense develops at Duke. as it stands right now, he looks to me more like an Ausar/AK47 type player where he's a wing defender who can flat out block shots, wreak havoc defensively in myriad ways, score using his athleticism, make plays with his passing, but will be limited offensively - if the shooting never gets there entirely. his shooting is of course the elephant in the room and exactly how good of a prospect he is will hinge on how that improves.
also i don't think Derek Queen is a serious NBA prospect at this point - he was probably born about 40 years too late.