Cooper Flagg

[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.

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

If someone wants to take that position, I'm not gonna stop them. I just believe Paolo is a future MVP/champion in this league.

[The Master]

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

Yes, we are, Flagg averaged 19-8-4 on 55TS% against tournament teams this season and Banchero averages 26-7-4 in the NBA, lol.

But Banchero in his Duke season was a year older and worse in literally everything, so there's no comparison here.

[Chokic]

What makes him impressive is his ability to impact in all aspects of the game along with his high motor. Kid never stops playing hard. I'm not sure what his offensive ceiling is bc hes still so young but he's the type to do all the things to help your team win games and that's really invaluable for any franchise.

Similar two way archetypes kawhi leonard anthony davis on the high end and jimmy butler on lower end.

Earlier we see AK47 comps but I think it's pretty clear by now he will be way better than that given his age trajectory.
A taller more athletic kawhi leonard is a scary player. Well see if he can get kawhis midrange game.

[EmpireFalls]

I really do think Tatum and a discount LeBron are the best comps.

[ReggiesKnicks]

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

Yes, we are, Flagg averaged 19-8-4 on 55TS% against tournament teams this season and Banchero averages 26-7-4 in the NBA, lol.

But Banchero in his Duke season was a year older and worse in literally everything, so there's no comparison here.

Flagg is going to be a better defender than Paolo on the first day of the NBA season by a wide margin.

[Liam_Gallagher]

18- and 19-year-olds lost to 23- and 24-year-olds again.

[CptCrunch]

18- and 19-year-olds lost to 23- and 24-year-olds again.

18-19 year olds lost to refs. Fixed for you.

[Duke4life831]

18- and 19-year-olds lost to 23- and 24-year-olds again.

18-19 year olds lost to refs. Fixed for you.

Im as biased and as big of a Duke homer you will find.

There is no way to spin this as Duke losing last night because of the refs. Dont get me wrong, it wasnt because of Flagg. But no the refs didnt cost Duke that game.

Taking your foot off the gas with 10 minutes to go, to play directly into the hands of Houston is why they lost last night. Duke lost because they choked, its as simple as that.

[bisme37]

18- and 19-year-olds lost to 23- and 24-year-olds again.

18-19 year olds lost to refs. Fixed for you.

Im as biased and as big of a Duke homer you will find.

There is no way to spin this as Duke losing last night because of the refs. Dont get me wrong, it wasnt because of Flagg. But no the refs didnt cost Duke that game.

Taking your foot off the gas with 10 minutes to go, to play directly into the hands of Houston is why they lost last night. Duke lost because they choked, its as simple as that.

Sorry for your loss last night buddy. I'm not necessarily a Duke fan but I wanted to keep seeing Flagg play, so I was rooting for them. Really tough ending. I'm thinking maybe Duke just didn't have enough experience with late game pressure since they'd been winning games pretty easily up to this point.

[Duke4life831]

Anyways, here are Flagg's numbers in the tournament this year.

21/7/5 with 2 blocks per game on 44/50/90 shooting splits (58 TS%).

Doing that as the 4th youngest player in college basketball, on the biggest stage of the sport. Also his defense was flat out phenomenal.

He was billed as a generational prospect coming into the season. I feel like he didnt just live up the hype, he exceeded the hype.

[Duke4life831]

18-19 year olds lost to refs. Fixed for you.

Im as biased and as big of a Duke homer you will find.

There is no way to spin this as Duke losing last night because of the refs. Dont get me wrong, it wasnt because of Flagg. But no the refs didnt cost Duke that game.

Taking your foot off the gas with 10 minutes to go, to play directly into the hands of Houston is why they lost last night. Duke lost because they choked, its as simple as that.

Sorry for your loss last night buddy. I'm not necessarily a Duke fan but I wanted to keep seeing Flagg play, so I was rooting for them. Really tough ending. I'm thinking maybe Duke just didn't have enough experience with late game pressure since they'd been winning games pretty easily up to this point.

Ya I think its a combination of a couple things.

1. Scheyer coaching way too conservative the last 10 minutes. This has been a reacurring issue throughout the season. Most of the time Duke was still able to hold on. The UNC game in the ACC tournament they were up by 24 points in the 2nd half, took the air out of the ball and basically only ended up winning that game because of a lane violation by UNC with 4 seconds to go. And against a real bad ND team, they got up by 19 with about 6 minutes to go, same thing. Took the air out of the ball and ND got within 4 points with 30 seconds to go. Scheyer needs to stop doing this.

2. Guards win in March. Having an elite veteran guard in March is like a freaking super power haha. Both Houston and Florida are in the championship game because of their SR All American guards. Duke's guards and their vets are role players (very very good role players). But ya that's what they are and the difference showed. Cryer was hitting running 1 legged 3pt shots, while Duke guards did nothing.

[Cavsfansince84]

Anyways, here are Flagg's numbers in the tournament this year.

21/7/5 with 2 blocks per game on 44/50/90 shooting splits (58 TS%).

Doing that as the 4th youngest player in college basketball, on the biggest stage of the sport. Also his defense was flat out phenomenal.

He was billed as a generational prospect coming into the season. I feel like he didnt just live up the hype, he exceeded the hype.

I don't agree on him being a generational prospect because I don't agree with this whole idea that those come along every 3-4 years like the media has been acting like for the last 10 or so years but I've been higher than most on him for the last year and wouldn't be surprised if he won an mvp or became a consistent top 5 player in the nba. I think Tatum is also a very low ball comp for him. Tatum has pretty much maxed out his talent imo and is borderline top 5 due in part to playing on some stacked teams. Flagg can be almost as good on offense imo but way better on defense. Flagg also plays with more aggressiveness on offense which Tatum often lacks.

[ShotCreator]

Anyways, here are Flagg's numbers in the tournament this year.

21/7/5 with 2 blocks per game on 44/50/90 shooting splits (58 TS%).

Doing that as the 4th youngest player in college basketball, on the biggest stage of the sport. Also his defense was flat out phenomenal.

He was billed as a generational prospect coming into the season. I feel like he didnt just live up the hype, he exceeded the hype.

I don't agree on him being a generational prospect because I don't agree with this whole idea that those come along every 3-4 years like the media has been acting like for the last 10 or so years but I've been higher than most on him for the last year and wouldn't be surprised if he won an mvp or became a consistent top 5 player in the nba. I think Tatum is also a very low ball comp for him. Tatum has pretty much maxed out his talent imo and is borderline top 5 due in part to playing on some stacked teams. Flagg can be almost as good on offense imo but way better on defense. Flagg also plays with more aggressiveness on offense which Tatum often lacks.

He's more aggressive because he can get better shots. Especially at the rim. He's visibly stronger and I think more explosive than Tatum. His body type reminds me of AD's. But obviously scaled down a bit.

[Duke4life831]

Anyways, here are Flagg's numbers in the tournament this year.

21/7/5 with 2 blocks per game on 44/50/90 shooting splits (58 TS%).

Doing that as the 4th youngest player in college basketball, on the biggest stage of the sport. Also his defense was flat out phenomenal.

He was billed as a generational prospect coming into the season. I feel like he didnt just live up the hype, he exceeded the hype.

I don't agree on him being a generational prospect because I don't agree with this whole idea that those come along every 3-4 years like the media has been acting like for the last 10 or so years but I've been higher than most on him for the last year and wouldn't be surprised if he won an mvp or became a consistent top 5 player in the nba. I think Tatum is also a very low ball comp for him. Tatum has pretty much maxed out his talent imo and is borderline top 5 due in part to playing on some stacked teams. Flagg can be almost as good on offense imo but way better on defense. Flagg also plays with more aggressiveness on offense which Tatum often lacks.

I agree with the term "generational prospect" being thrown around too much. With that said, I think you can make the argument that Flagg is the best or 2nd best prospect to come out of a US high school since LeBron.

I also think the gap between Flagg and Tatum on offense is going to be pretty big (Flagg with the advantage). Flagg is the better shooter at the same stage. His on ball creativity is drastically ahead of Tatum at the same stage. I also think he's far more athletic and aggressive with the ball. Also one thing that doesnt get talked about a lot. He reminds me of Jrue Holiday when it comes to finishing at the rim with his off hand. Flagg might actually have better touch around the rim with his left hand than his right hand.

[Cavsfansince84]

He's more aggressive because he can get better shots. Especially at the rim. He's visibly stronger and I think more explosive than Tatum. His body type reminds me of AD's. But obviously scaled down a bit.

I get that. That's what I'm talking about is his level of size and strength is closer to that of a big than a wing. Much more so when he is age 23-30 than at age 18. He could actually still grow another inch or so and will probably put on like 20lb of muscle in a few years. AD isn't aggressive with the ball though like Flagg is. Tatum plays much more like a traditional wing who doesn't want contact.

[Cavsfansince84]

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

Yes, we are, Flagg averaged 19-8-4 on 55TS% against tournament teams this season and Banchero averages 26-7-4 in the NBA, lol.

But Banchero in his Duke season was a year older and worse in literally everything, so there's no comparison here.

I mean ya but that's also like saying MJ avged 19/4/4 his jr year at unc(if this were 1985) while somebody like avg nba all star avged 22/6/4 in the nba so obviously 21 year old MJ can't be as good as the nba player. Flagg in his rookie year might actually be better than Paolo. Not saying he will but using college/nba numbers can be deceiving in some ways.

[The Master]

I mean ya but that's also like saying MJ avged 19/4/4 his jr year at unc(if this were 1985) while somebody like avg nba all star avged 22/6/4 in the nba so obviously 21 year old MJ can't be as good as the nba player. Flagg in his rookie year might actually be better than Paolo. Not saying he will but using college/nba numbers can be deceiving in some ways.

Not really, the difference between NCAA and NBA in 1985 was smaller than it is now, rookie Jordan or Hakeem were from the start top15 players in the NBA, so them being ~top30 players a year earlier is very likely.

Banchero in college averaged 17-8-3 on 56TS% and as a rookie in the NBA (for sure being much better player) 20-7-4 on 53TS% and -1.5 BPM. Right now he's at 26-8-5 on 55TS% and +3.6 BPM (and that's probably below his actual value due to injuries). Imagine how much better he's as a player now than he was in college.

There's no way Flagg right now is even close to Banchero as a player. In his 2nd year, yeah, I bet he'll be indeed better. As a rookie? Unlikely, but possible.

[dc]

What makes him impressive is his ability to impact in all aspects of the game along with his high motor. Kid never stops playing hard. I'm not sure what his offensive ceiling is bc hes still so young but he's the type to do all the things to help your team win games and that's really invaluable for any franchise.

Similar two way archetypes kawhi leonard anthony davis on the high end and jimmy butler on lower end.

Earlier we see AK47 comps but I think it's pretty clear by now he will be way better than that given his age trajectory.
A taller more athletic kawhi leonard is a scary player. Well see if he can get kawhis midrange game.

The improvement in his shooting over the season was a really good sign for his offense. Kawhi's improvement on the offensive side of the ball from his college days when he was projected as a 3-D type to eventually becoming a #1 option is unprecedented and that kind of improvement just can't be counted on from anyone.

You have to see how Flagg's ballhandling translates to see if he can be a true #1 option in the pros. See how if he can get into the lane consistently without excessive turnovers. His passing looks very good.

He doesn't have the size to have AD rim protector abilities at the NBA level. He'll have to "settle" for being more of a wing/all around like defender. Ideally, take parts of games from guys like Kawhi/Dray/Kirilenko/Battier.

[Jedi32]

Duke just ran into a better team it happens.

[Cavsfansince84]

Not really, the difference between NCAA and NBA in 1985 was smaller than it is now, rookie Jordan or Hakeem were from the start top15 players in the NBA, so them being ~top30 players a year earlier is very likely.

Banchero in college averaged 17-8-3 on 56TS% and as a rookie in the NBA (for sure being much better player) 20-7-4 on 53TS% and -1.5 BPM. Right now he's at 26-8-5 on 55TS% and +3.6 BPM (and that's probably below his actual value due to injuries). Imagine how much better he's as a player now than he was in college.

There's no way Flagg right now is even close to Banchero as a player. In his 2nd year, yeah, I bet he'll be indeed better. As a rookie? Unlikely, but possible.

I'd agree that college was generally better in 1985 because even the best players would stay 3-4 years but still, college numbers are generally lower at top tier schools because the teams are stacked with blue chips and don't usually ride a star the way they do at smaller schools. Ewing for instance when he was considered a near generational talent at GT only avged like 15/10 in his senior year.