Cooper Flagg

[Ice Man]

Yeah, obviously Flagg's college legacy won't be that final shot, any more than Michael Jordan's college legacy is defined by him fouling out of his final NCAA game, after having scored only 13 points.

[Special_Puppy]

you won't find a bigger Flagg fan than me but he's now failed multiple times in big moments. It's not an indictment on him as player it's just something to be mindful of

To be clear we are talking about a game where he scored 27 points on 59% TS, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 turnover, 2 steals, and 3 blocks .

[tsherkin]

you won't find a bigger Flagg fan than me but he's now failed multiple times in big moments. It's not an indictment on him as player it's just something to be mindful of

To be clear we are talking about a game where he scored 27 points on 59% TS, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 turnover, 2 steals, and 3 blocks .

Probably focusing on the 8/19 shooting and the disaster of the final 3 minutes. It was, of course a very good game overall, so it may not be appropriate to do so, but that's my inference from the comment about failing in big moments. They were starved for points down the stretch of that game.

[namlede]

He is not a last second on shot clock bucket getter yet. He is still just 18 and developing. He needs to follow in the Butler Kawhi mold of scoring because his first step and quick twitch is not elite. Good for his size but he needs to tighten his handle, work on his post moves and shooting. He I’ll be a dam beast in his early mid 20s. I’m thinking Kawhi with better playmaking on O and D.

[Sandy333]

He is Paolo banchero kind of player, big for his position.

[FrodoBaggins]

I'm ready to go all in now that Cooper's collegiate career is over. I think he's the NBA's next big thing, the next American superstar. Barring any serious injuries or health concerns, I'm ready to stake all of my chips and say I think he'll be a perennial MVP-level player in his prime. A 10x All-Star with the All-NBA selections to match.

Everybody understands and acknowledges his unusually high floor as a prospect, but I think many are still sleeping on his ceiling. He has no weaknesses, and his productivity is precocious beyond belief. Like, legitimately LeBron-esque. NPOY on the #1 seed leading his team in all five major statistics with a pending draft age only a week older than LBJ. Younger than a handful of prep-to-pro stars like Kevin Garnett and Dwight Howard.

He ticks all the boxes.

Size, athleticism, skill, cognition, personality/character/intangibles.

There are aspects of his basketball skillset that you could say are relatively weaker than the rest. Like, say, his ball handling. But even then, I'm not sure how true that is. At the start of the season? Sure. But by the new year, he had developed into a full-blown point forward and knockdown shooter with the numbers to prove it.

He's so well-rounded and flawless that I think people sleep on some of his offensive strengths. Namely, the shooting and playmaking.

He ended up his time at Duke shooting 38.5% 3PT on 3.6 3PA/g and 84.0% FT on 5.8 FTA/g. Consider the exponential rate of improvement: 44.4% on 3.7 3PA/g and 87.7% on 6.0 FTA/g over his last 27 games. And the playmaking: 4.2 apg, 2.1 topg, 26.8 AST%, 11.5 TO% for the entire season. 4.4 apg, 2.1 topg over the last 27 games.

Those are incredible numbers for such a big and athletic player who's so young. If he wasn't already so polished, people might have called more attention to his shooting and passing. But when you do everything well, nothing sticks out.

I've heard several times that Flagg isn't a generational prospect because he doesn't have that one special thing. An X-factor of sorts. He doesn't have LeBron or Zion's bulk and explosiveness. Or AD's C/PF positional size. These things may be true but what does it actually mean? It's not as if he's lacking anywhere, let alone actual basketball skills. That lack of freak physical gifts only matters if there's some sort of deficiency.

Was Luka not a generational prospect winning Euro League MVP as a teenager, busting grown men in the 2nd best league in the world? Shouldn't precocious productivity be the first consideration?

If Cooper does have an X-Factor I think it's two things: his robustness/lack of weaknesses and his exponential rate of improvement. His growth rate has been insane. From a defensive specialist at the U17 FIBA WC as a 15 y/o, to a two-way role player Gatorade HS POY at Montverde, to a legitimate two-way point forward NPOY at Duke.

He gets better fast as hell. I read an interesting article from about a decade ago the other day. It found that the players who improve basketball skills the most in the pros are the ones who are already skilled in college:

https://www.canishoopus.com/2014/2/26/5435374/potential-nba-draft-prospects

Potential as an underlying cognitive trait:

Players who fill up box-scores and show a high level of skill across a variety of traits are often denied access to the ‘high potential' category if they lack impressive athleticism. Just look at how some current NBA stars were viewed entering the league. Draft Express had this to say about Kevin Love in 2008: "... There are serious doubts about how his proficiency will translate to the pro level... there really aren't many players at his height with his lack of athleticism in the pros, and it's tough to guess how high in the draft a team will be willing to take a chance on him." Here are some comments on Marc Gasol "The current leader in efficiency rating in the ACB League, Marc Gasol has built a pretty mistake-free style of game that helps him to emerge as a statistical standout.... How much will Gasol's lack of athleticism get exposed in the NBA? I guess that's the question every single decision maker will be asking himself" before he fell to the second round in 2007. Paul Millsap dropped to the late second round in 2006 in spite of impressive collegiate production. The reason for Millsap's drop is likely captured in NBADraft.net's lowly 7/10, 5/10. And 7/10 ratings for athleticism, size, and potential. Stephen Curry and James Harden both earned a "limited upside?" flag from Draft Express; Curry due to his "frail frame" and "average athleticism, lateral quickness, and wingspan", Harden due to his "average size and athleticism." These are all players I would put on the far right of the ‘raw' to ‘skilled' continuum, yet they moved along faster growth trajectories in the pros than any of their peers. Those growth trajectories are exactly what the concept of potential is supposed to be measuring.

[BTW... I do not mean to rag on DX here, they do a much better job than other draft media. See here for a great and relevant DX article. I only use their comments because they are easily accessible and represent commonly held opinions at the time]

The key to the success of all of these players is that they started with a really nice skill-set, but then added to those tools every season. This makes sense if we expand the idea of unique individual skill-curves to some core underlying trait that applies more broadly than any single skill. Call it learning-ability, work-ethic, BBIQ, coordination, or whatever else you want. The key is that a player has some trait (or collection of traits) that results in more rapid accretion of skills. If we believe this is the case, a player who already has an ‘old man game' as a freshman in college should be labeled as ‘high potential' rather than just the back-handed ‘NBA ready', because we can expect him to continue to develop at a faster rate than his peers.

This is a more complex phenomenon to try to test, but I did throw together a tentative analysis using two traits that I think are probing that underlying quality better than others. Players who collect lots of steals and have a good assist-to-turnover ratio in college tend to perform better in the NBA, not just at passing and stealing, but in general. In fact, I found that NCAA steals are actually one of the better predictors of NBA offensive RAPM when building my draft models. Steals and assist-to-turnover ratio seem to say something about a player's awareness and understanding of the game that makes them useful markers of potential. What I did here is look at progression in points from age 20 to 22 as we did above, but instead of splitting players into groups based on college points, I split them into high/low-ast-to-tov and high/low-steals:



As you can see, in both cases, the high-skill groups continue progressing at a steady rate, while the low-skill groups hit a wall at 21. Remember, this is happening even though we are looking at skill in completely different statistics. A lot more needs to be done to properly test this theory of ‘potential', but this shows some support for looking at individual differences in expected growth that may have nothing to do with athleticism.

This should start to make us worry about those ‘raw' prospects who succeed at the college level based purely on physical tools. Athleticism alone is not going to cut it at the NBA level, and if a player does not show a diverse skill-set or high BBIQ by the time he is in college, we really should worry about his potential to ever do so. The list of players who my draft projection model thought were great prospects based on college production but failed in the NBA is littered with these kinds of players. Tyrus Thomas, Stromile Swift, Eddie Griffin, Patrick O'Bryant, Hassan Whiteside, Anthony Randolph, Tyreke Evans... There are a lot more raw athletes to drastically under-perform based on college production than there are highly skilled mediocre athletes.

I think natural, baseline balance, coordination, and dexterity (coordination of the fingers and hands/fine motor skills) have a lot to do with it. These are components of athleticism that are harder to see or point out compared to expressions of power, such as a 40-yard dash or vertical jump.

Personality, character, and ultimately work ethic play a part also.

I think Cooper is just going to continue to improve every year. He's an outlier in this department, and I don't see that changing.

[___Rand___]

you won't find a bigger Flagg fan than me but he's now failed multiple times in big moments. It's not an indictment on him as player it's just something to be mindful of

To be clear we are talking about a game where he scored 27 points on 59% TS, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 turnover, 2 steals, and 3 blocks .

Probably focusing on the 8/19 shooting and the disaster of the final 3 minutes. It was, of course a very good game overall, so it may not be appropriate to do so, but that's my inference from the comment about failing in big moments. They were starved for points down the stretch of that game.

I think Roberts' defense of Flagg would have him rising in the draft. He defended him very well I thought.

A couple of things - in NBA the floor spacing would be better for him, because of rules and because the floor IS wider width wise. This was Flagg's best college game I'd seen. Coaching failed him. Poorly drawn plays, mismanagement of end of game or managing the lead. Stuff that tactical coaches excel in, Duke coach didn't. This wasn't on Flagg. This was on the young coach.

[___Rand___]

He is not a last second on shot clock bucket getter yet. He is still just 18 and developing. He needs to follow in the Butler Kawhi mold of scoring because his first step and quick twitch is not elite. Good for his size but he needs to tighten his handle, work on his post moves and shooting. He I’ll be a dam beast in his early mid 20s. I’m thinking Kawhi with better playmaking on O and D.

I agree with you word for word till the last LETTER. No. He won't be better than Kawhi on defense. He's not the lock down defender. But he's already miles ahead of Kawhi on offense at this age. He's ahead of Tatum on offense at this age. He'll score easier in NBA.

[Special_Puppy]

you won't find a bigger Flagg fan than me but he's now failed multiple times in big moments. It's not an indictment on him as player it's just something to be mindful of

To be clear we are talking about a game where he scored 27 points on 59% TS, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 turnover, 2 steals, and 3 blocks .

Probably focusing on the 8/19 shooting and the disaster of the final 3 minutes. It was, of course a very good game overall, so it may not be appropriate to do so, but that's my inference from the comment about failing in big moments. They were starved for points down the stretch of that game.

Right and OP is silly. I would understand it if he played like he did in the Alabama game, but Flagg had an outstanding game overall.

[Special_Puppy]

He is Paolo banchero kind of player, big for his position.

In general comparisons for Flagg are awkward because Flagg is *way* better than his comps at age 18, but also his comps had outlier development tracks that we obviously can't guarantee Flagg will have.

[hauntedcomputer]

He's no Christian Laettner, that's for sure.

[EmpireFalls]

He is Paolo banchero kind of player, big for his position.

In general comparisons for Flagg are awkward because Flagg is *way* better than his comps at age 18, but also his comps had outlier development tracks that we obviously can't guarantee Flagg will have.

His comp is about a B+ athleticism and scoring version of LeBron James.

[EmpireFalls]

Yeah, obviously Flagg's college legacy won't be that final shot, any more than Michael Jordan's college legacy is defined by him fouling out of his final NCAA game, after having scored only 13 points.

My uncle still refuses to call Jordan the GOAT because of that. True story. UNC basketball is everything down here.

[tsherkin]

To be clear we are talking about a game where he scored 27 points on 59% TS, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 turnover, 2 steals, and 3 blocks .

Probably focusing on the 8/19 shooting and the disaster of the final 3 minutes. It was, of course a very good game overall, so it may not be appropriate to do so, but that's my inference from the comment about failing in big moments. They were starved for points down the stretch of that game.

I think Roberts' defense of Flagg would have him rising in the draft. He defended him very well I thought.

A couple of things - in NBA the floor spacing would be better for him, because of rules and because the floor IS wider width wise. This was Flagg's best college game I'd seen. Coaching failed him. Poorly drawn plays, mismanagement of end of game or managing the lead. Stuff that tactical coaches excel in, Duke coach didn't. This wasn't on Flagg. This was on the young coach.

Right and OP is silly. I would understand it if he played like he did in the Alabama game, but Flagg had an outstanding game overall.

Yeah, I mean, I don't see anything worrisome in there. He got to the line, he did his usual versatile thing. He was aggressive. He's also 18. He doesn't need to be forcing storybook endings with his heroics right away. Duke definitely seemed to fall apart at the seams in the last couple minutes. And they looked a bit outmatched athletically in the backcourt, too. But yeah, that one was about team-wide mistakes. Poor ball protection, rough times trying to inbound the ball and massive failure to score for several minutes at the end.

[The Master]

(most of these seasons are from shorter 3pt line)

Here are offensive stats in their draft years of every future (?) all-star drafted since 2015 on perimeter positions.

Flagg is obviously the youngest here - and he's above average in every offensive area (3pt shooting, FT%, scoring, playmaking, ballhandling and turnover ratio). It's pretty crazy to realize that Edwards was below average scorer and creator here statistically, Cunningham was below average as a ballhandler, Banchero was below average shooter and scorer, Simmons was obviously way below average shooter as well - and they were all 1st draft picks and allstars at 21-23yo. It's also fascinating for his future projection that while he has been at least very good in everything - Flagg wasn't the best in anything. It's not given that he'll reach his ceiling, but it's insane that even ignoring defense - he would've been a 1st pick here (and a better prospect than Banchero, Cade or Edwards) just based on his offensive production. And it also shows that we may argue that development isn't linear and guaranteed (Brunson or SGA overachieving in their NBA careers), but only Brunson here was perhaps a better NCAA player offensively, and he was over 3 years older on a better team. Hard to describe how ahead of a curve in terms of his development is Flagg as a prospect.

It was a pleasure to follow him all season long.

[azcatz11]

He is Paolo banchero kind of player, big for his position.

In general comparisons for Flagg are awkward because Flagg is *way* better than his comps at age 18, but also his comps had outlier development tracks that we obviously can't guarantee Flagg will have.

His comp is about a B+ athleticism and scoring version of LeBron James.

You know, I didn’t believe he was a point forward until recently but he’s actually a really good passer. He sets up Kon with so many easy looks and the pnr game with maluach….didnt show last night but its special. They should have ran that play last night instead of that fadeaway but even it wasn’t a horrible shot.

Poor mans LeBron isn’t even a bad comparison imo. He’s way further ahead than Tatum who everyone comps him too and is just a far more natural athlete. Humble, insane work ethic, I would rather have him than Luka all things considered

[Pattycakes]

He’s still a puppy, let’s stop treating him like a grown man

[Chuck Everett]

Future All-NBA player for sure. Now, is he a future MVP? That remains to be seen. I still like Paolo long-term more than him (due to his ability to be a one-man wrecking crew on offense). Still, this guy is going to be on a lot of Team USA rosters and I look forward to it. He's a gamer and he has heart. Hoping he ends up in the Eastern Conference as well.

[Special_Puppy]

I think its reasonable to put Flagg in the 85-90th percentile historically for number 1 picks (so he's a better prospect than 85-90% of number 1 picks historically).

[Special_Puppy]

Future All-NBA player for sure. Now, is he a future MVP? That remains to be seen. I still like Paolo long-term more than him (due to his ability to be a one-man wrecking crew on offense). Still, this guy is going to be on a lot of Team USA rosters and I look forward to it. He's a gamer and he has heart. Hoping he ends up in the Eastern Conference as well.

Are we sure that Flagg isn't already better than Paolo