Cooper Flagg is ready to define the next generation of basketball superstardom

Cooper Flagg walked into USA Basketball practice with nothing to lose and everything to prove. He was just about the youngest person in the building, competing against more mature and more accomplished players with far greater pedigrees. He entered the scrimmages needing to adjust to a new role in a totally new environment on the fly, all while going against the biggest, fastest, and most talented competition of his life.

Flagg immediately recognized he wasn’t going to get the ball as much as he did back home in Maine. After all, every player in the gym only had three days to leave an impression on the coaches, to show that they belonged in a setting as prestigious as USA Basketball. If Flagg wanted the ball, he knew he was going to have to get it himself.

Andy Bedard, his coach since third grade, watched from the sidelines, reminding him that there was no need to conserve energy like he would for a 40-minute game. Every possession was the opportunity of a lifetime, and he had to leave it all on the floor. And so he did: there was Flagg crashing the glass and finishing putbacks over elite big men. There he was rotating for weak side blocks, and forcing steals at the defensive end. There he was giving second and third efforts on almost every possession.

By the end of the week, everyone in attendance believed Flagg was one of the best players on the court. It was shocking someone so young could perform so well against world-class competition.

“You would have thought he was the oldest one there based on the maturity and poise, and the way that he handled his game,” Bedard told SB Nation.

This is not an account of Flagg’s triumphant practice run against Team USA ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, though that is where his story leaves off for now. No, this was two years earlier, when Flagg was a 15-year-old trying out for the U17 FIBA World Cup roster.

“That’s when it really happened for him off the ball.” Bedard said. “You hear the line all the time about Cooper, he impacts winning without the ball. And I think that was the first time where he really had to do that. Since then it has become second nature.”

Flagg didn’t just make the team coming out of U17 minicamp — he established himself as someone the coaches couldn’t keep off the floor. He painted a distinctive masterpiece in the gold medal game against Spain, finishing with 10 points, 17 rebounds, eight steals, four blocks, and two assists. In the process, he introduced himself to the broader basketball public for the first time as the player who could dominate without demanding touches while vacillating through a variety of less heralded roles.

Just two years later, Flagg feels more famous than half the NBA at least. After reclassifying to essentially skip his senior year of high school, he enters Duke as 17-year-old freshman who is the landslide favorite to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. Most people around the sport believe he’s the best long-term basketball prospect in the world currently outside of the NBA. After watching him score against Jrue Holiday, rip threes over Anthony Davis, and finish layups through Bam Adebayo on the Olympic Select Team, it doesn’t feel like a stretch to say Flagg could very well be a generation-defining talent.

NBA superstars come with their own hallmark traits, and for Flagg, it’s his well-roundedness. He can play almost any role on the floor, from primary creator to floor spacer, from passing hub to play finisher. He is the rare non-big man top prospect whose defensive ability is so incredible that it overshadows his offense. It doesn’t hurt to be 6’9 with elite run-and-jump athleticism, a rare feel for the game, and an endless motor, either.

“If he was told he could never take a shot outside of 12-feet, he could still be a very effective NBA player,” said Kevin Boyle Jr, who helped coach Flagg at Montverde Academy.

Flagg hails from the town of Newport, which has just 3,300 residents. Maine as a state hasn’t produced a player selected in the NBA draft in 40 years. This is perhaps the least likely place in the country for a world-class NBA prospect to develop, but those around him have been nurturing his talent from an early age. It might just lead to the next evolution of how a basketball star is supposed to play.

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Matt MacKenzie met Cooper and his twin brother Ace Flagg as they were entering sixth grade. The boys’ mother, Kelly, had heard about MacKenzie’s work training top high school players around Maine, and told him that she had two boys eager to learn and put in work. At the time, Cooper was 6’1 and could just barely touch the rim on his max vertical leap.

Two things about Cooper immediately stuck out to MacKenzie.

“He was incredibly competitive,” MacKenzie told SB Nation. “You could definitely tell that he wanted to win at all costs.”

“He was also a kid who picked up on things very quickly, even more so than some of the college players that I would work. His ability to acquire skills was just phenomenal. His natural IQ for the game of basketball was at a level that I hadn’t seen before for a kid that age.”

MacKenzie could see that Flagg was getting a wonderful basketball education at home. Kelly had been a productive wing at University of Maine, where she helped the program win its first and only NCAA tournament game ever. Their father Ralph was a 6’9 post player at Eastern Maine Community College. The Flagg parents were diehard Boston Celtics fans, and the Larry Bird era was their favorite. Cooper and Ace grew up rewatching games from their legendary 1986 season, a team not just defined by its tremendous success (67 regular season wins and an NBA championship) but also by its willingness to share the ball and play the right way.

MacKenzie and the Flagg brothers worked diligently together in the gym until their routine was interrupted by a pesky global pandemic. Their sessions moved to Zoom, just like everything else in the world. Three times per week, the Flagg brothers would work on moves in their driveway as MacKenzie instructed them through a screen from his gym. When they finally got back together, MacKenzie had a startling realization.

“We got back face to face in the gym, and I really noticed it. I was like, man, I know it’s been a few months, but you guys really shot up.”

Flagg was suddenly pushing 6’7, and starting to build a name for himself in Maine as the junior high kid dunking all over opponents. In the summer going into his freshman year, MacKenzie was bragging about Flagg to his friend, former NBA player Brian Scalabrine. Scal invited MacKenzie to bring Flagg down to Boston for a pickup run against some of the best high school players in the city.

Pitted against older, high-level competition, Flagg was dominating. MacKenzie recalls one sequence from that session now and remembers it as the first time he knew Flagg was special.

“Cooper is driving right. He establishes his left pivot foot, pump fakes, and then steps through underneath the defender’s armpit, throws the ball off the glass, catches it in the air and dunks it for a lob alley-oop.”

“The whole gym goes quiet. Scal he looked at me and he goes, Matt, you are developing a pro.”

Scalabine went home and called Brad Stevens to tell him about the young phenom he just saw. Soon, everyone else would know about Cooper Flagg, too.

Flagg was about to take Maine high school hoops by storm, and Bedard knew it was coming. He had been one of the state’s most successful basketball stories himself back in the day, earning a scholarship to Boston College before transferring to Maine where he led the American East in assists two seasons in a row. Now he was coaching the Flagg twins and his son Kaden on the grassroots team that would become Maine United, while getting a front row seat to Cooper’s rise.

Bedard’s team had been part of a larger AAU organization in the state, but he knew he had to break free to get his players more exposure. He sought out marquee matchups in neighboring states around the Northeast, and even did some traveling across the country. He let the kids choose the name. It didn’t take long for people to realize how good Cooper was: he got his first scholarship offer from Bryant in 8th grade, and Nike soon reached out to get Maine United on the EYBL.

“We had been tearing apart teams from New York, teams from Virginia, go ahead and name a state,” Bedard said. “When he showed up as a freak as a freshman, tearing apart Maine high school basketball, it was no surprise.”

Nokomis is the only high school in Newport. The boys team had never won a state championship as Cooper and Ace joined the program with several of their grassroots teammates. It quickly became clear that the youngest players on the team were more talented than the veterans, which included Cooper and Ace’s oldest brother Hunter as a senior big man.

Nokomis players wore masks on the court as the pandemic lingered, and put together with a season for the ages. With Cooper establishing he was the best player on the floor in every game, Nokomis finished 21-1 overall. The state title game was a rout as Flagg dropped 22 points and 16 rebounds. He was named Maine’s Gatorade Player of the Year, the first freshman to ever take home the honor.

Flagg was officially on the national radar as an elite player in his class, but his starring run with USA Basketball on the U17 team months later blasted him into the stratosphere. It was clear that Flagg had outgrown his small pond in Maine and needed a bigger challenge. There was no better opportunity than Florida prep powerhouse Montverde Academy.

Bedard had already been telling the Montverde coaches about a star player back on home after his son Kaden had transferred to the school while Cooper and Ace were at Nokomis. It was easy to dismiss the idea that some kid in Maine could play for the top NBA factory in high school basketball at first blush, but things quickly changed as Flagg’s accolades piled up. When Maine United came to Orlando for a spring tournament, Bedard was able to score gym time at Montverde to practice.

When the staff saw Flagg, they knew he was different.

“Normally if you’re going to be a sophomore, that probably means it’s gonna be a real challenge for you to get on the court here,” assistant coach Kevin Boyle Jr. told SB Nation. “So sometimes we’ll kind of discourage kids and try to advise them that, hey, why don’t you maybe revisit this when you’re a junior or senior?”

“But right away with Cooper, you could see it. Yes, he’s good enough to come off the bench and help as a sophomore, and you know, maybe more.”

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No one in high school basketball has coached more elite players than Kevin Boyle. He built New Jersey’s St. Patrick’s into a powerhouse with the help of Kyrie Irving and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist before making the move to Montverde in 2011. Since arriving in central Florida, Boyle’s rosters have read like a who’s-who of NBA lottery picks, including Ben Simmons, D’Angelo Russell, and R.J. Barrett. He had Cade Cunningham, Scottie Barnes, Moses Moody, and Precious Achiuwa on the same team.

A month before the new season started, Montverde flew out to Las Vegas for a tune-up invitational against other top programs. This would be Flagg’s unofficial debut for the big boys of high school basketball, and he left an immediate impression. Montverde knocked off Jared McCain’s loaded Centennial (CA) squad in the semifinals to reach the championship, where it faced five-star forward Koa Peat and Arizona Compass Prep.

Montverde trailed by 14 points early before making a big comeback. The game came down the last possession. The ball swung to Flagg who was supposed to reverse it, but he didn’t have a passing lane.

“He got that look in his eye, faced the basket, and said I’m going to be the one to score at the buzzer,” said Boyle Jr. who was acting as the team’s head coach. Montverde won in overtime.

“Moments like that stand out when you’ve seen a lot of guys over the years now that end up becoming very good NBA players, end up becoming NBA All-Stars, All-NBA guys. And one of those things is, you know, having that instinct, having that gene and especially when you’re still developing a lot of your skills, to somehow you find a way to get it done.”

Flagg’s preseason buzzer-beater was a sign of things to come. After losing to that same Arizona Compass team in the season opener, Montverde ripped off wins in 23 of their next 24 games against a loaded schedule that took them from Utah to Maryland to Hawaii to Massachusetts. Kwame Evans Jr. (Oregon) and Sean Stewart (Duke) were the Eagles’ senior leaders, but it was becoming clear a group of underclassmen led by Flagg were the most promising talents in the program.

Montverde’s season ended in a shocking upset against Matas Buzelis and Sunrise Christian in the quarterfinals of the Chipotle High School Nationals. As Flagg entered the offseason, he was ready to fast track his development to the next level.

Flagg didn’t have much time to internalize the end of his first season with Montverde. Only three weeks after that defeat, he was already back on the floor in the EYBL with Maine United. While he was roundly considered the best player in high school basketball at this point, Flagg would be playing on Nike’s U16 circuit because that was the level that best suited his teammates.

Flagg dropped 52 points against Pro Skills in his first outing of the spring, but Maine United still lost a close game. This would become a theme: Flagg was putting up comically dominant stat lines, but his team stumbled through the season at just 9-8 overall. Maine United squeaked out some late wins to qualify for Peach Jam, and that’s when everything started coming together.

With Cooper attracting so much defensive attention, his teammates suddenly started coming into their own. Ace Flagg was growing into a capable co-star for his twin brother, popping off for double-doubles against some of the toughest teams on the circuit. Landon Clark was turning into a deadly outside shooter, and Kaden Bedard was contributing in his minutes, too. As for Cooper , he was cruising as always: 25.5 points, 13.0 rebounds, 6.9 blocks, 5.7 assists and 1.4 steals per game to round out his event. Along the way, he even got some words of encouragement from LeBron James.

Maine United ran all the way to the championship game at Peach Jam before losing to Nightrydas with the Boozer twins — the second year in the row they met this exact ending. With no USA Basketball engagements the rest of the summer, Flagg got in the lab with MacKenzie and started working to become an improved all-around offensive player.

Flagg had always been able to win on offense his combination of size, athleticism, and IQ. His passing was his strongest offensive skill, but he knew he wouldn’t fully be able to access it until the rest of his skill set rounded out. Step one was ironing out his jump shot.

Flagg had hit 25.7 percent of his threes at Montverde, and 33 percent in his spring and summer run with Maine United. To continue to build his jump shot, MacKenzie brought Flagg back to the basics.

“There was a time in his game where he would be releasing the ball a little bit too late, and it would lead to a pretty flat shot,” MacKenzie said. “The biggest thing for him is getting his footwork to be consistent every single repetition, making sure that he’s balanced and that he’s able to flow from the foundation of his jump shot right up to the top of his release.”

“Making sure that he’s catching it with clean hands, that was very important. The other piece is making sure that he had just great rhythm, every single shot.”

Flagg was about to become the unquestioned No. 1 option at Montverde in the upcoming season, so he had to be able to handle the ball better, too. The big point of emphasis was making sure that he was keeping his hips low when he put the ball on the floor.

“When he was younger, he had a tendency to get his hips very high and his dribble was coming up a little bit too high as well,” MacKenzie said. “So we were working on setting up pick and roll, coming off ball screens, and then having to read defenses.”

Flagg was set to enter his third year of high school, but the worst kept secret in the sport was that it would be his last. At the end of the summer, Flagg announced he was reclassifying from 2025 to 2024. He would now get to college sooner, and more importantly, get to the NBA sooner. But before any of that could happen, Flagg, at 16 years old, still one one more season left at Montverde.

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Flagg wanted to make his college decision and end the rampant speculation about his recruitment before his senior year began. Two weeks before the season started, he committed to Duke over UConn and Kansas.

“After I got on campus, I really started to envision myself in Durham,” Flagg said in his commitment video.

Flagg was minted as the best player in the country, a future No. 1 overall NBA draft pick, and perhaps basketball’s next big thing. He knew none of it would mean anything without a stellar senior year at Montverde, and he was stepping onto a roster loaded with both talent and continuity.

Montverde had four of the top-15 players in the country returning. There was Liam McNeeley, a 6’9 sharpshooter who could stretch the opposing defense off movement and was already drawing lottery buzz. There was Derik Queen, a bruising center with phenomenal hands who could play from the elbows. There was also Asa Newell, a 6’10 pogo stick with elite explosiveness and agility who could finish plays above the rim on both ends. Montverde also brought in guard Robert Wright (merely the No. 25 overall recruit in the country) to add some extra perimeter creation, but ultimately Flagg would be the straw to stir the drink.

With MacKenzie coming down one weekend per month to continue their training sessions, Flagg’s offensive improvement skyrocketed. He was thriving as a downhill driver and finisher, he was confidently firing three-pointers off the catch and off the dribble, and he was maintaining his high-motor on both ends. His numbers were exploding from the previous season, and growth could be seen all over the tape. As it happened, Montverde was rolling over just about everyone.

Montverde only played three games all season within 10 points, and two of them were against a Prolific Prep team with the No. 1 player in 2025 and 2026 in A.J. Dybansta and Tyran Stokes. The Eagles took an undefeated record into high school nationals, and this time they wouldn’t be denied.

Th Eagles knocked off AZ Compass by 15 points in the quarterfinals, knocked off the Boozer twins at Columbus by 14 points in the semifinals, and beat Paul VI by 16 points in the championship game. The Eagles finished 33-0.

Flagg went from averaging averaging 9.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, and three assists per game in his first season at Montverde to 20.5 points, 10 rebounds, 6.2 assists in his senior season. He also averaged nearly four blocks and four steals per game. His three-point percentage was just a shade under 40 percent on the highest volume of his career.

To the coaching staff, the way he handled his surging fame was just as impressive as his on-court development.

“The most impressive thing to me besides all the basketball stuff was how he handled the entire year, because you every game we went to was a sold out crowd all wanting to see him,” Boyle Jr. said. They would run up to him in the hotel, going down for breakfast, getting into the elevator when he’s still waking up. And he always accommodated the fan requests.”

“Usually a person like that isn’t also like, you know, a mother effer on the court. But he flips it right on. He’ll take anybody’s head off and run through a screen and dunk on people. Then after the game, he carries himself like somebody you would let babysit your kids.”

Flagg now walks into Duke with the biggest expectations of any top recruit in recent memory. He’s not just the presumptive No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, he’s also being voted as the best player in college basketball right now. Those are typically two very different titles that few players (Zion Williams and Anthony Davis come to mind) have ever been able to pull off. It’s especially difficult for someone who will be a 17-year-old freshman until late Dec.

It’s hard to project how dominant Flagg will be as a scorer right away. His three-point shot is unquestionably improved, but will remain an area to monitor. Duke will have an absurd amount of talent around him, but his role and usage could fluctuate. Either way, he’s going to overwhelm college opponents with his size, athleticism, and relentless dedication to playing hard.

Flagg already seems so polished that it’s hard to fathom his prime is a decade away. Will he eventually be the alpha primary initiator NBA superstar dreams are made of? Will he be closer to a 98 overall Shawn Marion? The world is full of possibilities for a 17-year-old, but by all accounts, Flagg has the mental makeup needed for greatness.

“He just has a natural sense of like, hey, that’s where they score baskets, that’s what we where we need to stop them from going,” said Boyle Jr. “Like, obviously you have to be know where your man is and your position on defense. But at all times, he’s still aware and ready to protect the basket.”

Given how much the sport has changed over the last decade, it’s impossible to say what the NBA of the mid 2030s will look like. However the game evolves, it sure feels like Cooper Flagg will be one of the players helping define it.