5 Cooper Flagg NBA comparisons that show why he’s No. 1 pick in our mock draft

Cooper Flagg might be the best American-born basketball prospect since LeBron James entered the 2003 NBA Draft. That’s a bold claim to make against the likes of Anthony Davis at Kentucky, Zion Williamson at Duke, Greg Oden at Ohio State, and Derrick Rose at Memphis, but Flagg has put himself in that conversation during an electric freshman year.

Flagg has been the best player in college basketball this season despite being one of the youngest players in the sport. He spent three years in high school before reclassifying to enter college early, enrolling at Duke at 17 years old. His play has jumped to next stratosphere after turning 18 on Dec. 21. Since his birthday, Flagg is averaging 20 points, 6.8 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.3 blocks per game with a 57.4 effective field goal percentage and 43.3 percent three-point shooting. He has Duke into the Final Four, and in a few months he’ll be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.

There is so much to like about Flagg’s game. He has ideal positional size for an NBA four at 6’9 with a 7-foot wingspan. He’s an explosive athlete who can easily finish plays above the rim on both ends. Defensively, he’s a capable wing stopper on the ball, and a great off-ball roamer with shot-blocking skills and the ability to grab a steal and push the ball down the floor for a bucket. Offensively, he’s an excellent passer, a fearsome cutter, and a red shot spot-up shooter. He’s spent his freshman year proving he can be a star with the ball in his hands, running isolations and pick-and-rolls with impressive efficiency at star-level 30 percent usage.

What has always made Flagg special is his two-way versatility and undeniable impact on winning. With that in mind, here are five NBA comps for Cooper Flagg that help contextualize how his game can translate to the next level.

Jayson Tatum

Tatum is obviously one of the best players in the NBA on the brink of his fourth-straight First-Team All-NBA nod this season. He’s proven he can be the best player on a championship team, and he’s still only 27 years old. Two things stand out about his game as it relates to Flagg: versatility and consistency.

Tatum may not have won 2024 NBA Finals MVP, but his performance in those Finals proved how valuable he is. Tatum did the dirty work all series long, defending Dallas’ centers, relentlessly driving the ball to the rim for kickouts to teammates, and helping clean the glass. Tatum is almost the exact same size as Flagg (he’s listed at 6’8 with a 6’11 wingspan), and he’s used that big frame to a bully in the paint. Flagg could have similar physicality as he ages.

Tatum’s scoring gets all the attention, but he also impacts the game in so many other ways, as a rebounder, as a versatile defender, as an offensive weapon on-and-off the ball. Tatum has a case as Duke’s best NBA product ever, and Flagg will be coming for that title.

Andrei Kirilenko

Kirilenko was one of the most underrated players of his era. A 6’9 forward with a monstrous 7’4 wingspan, AK47 was a dominant defender who could capably space the floor on offense and had advanced playmaking chops. That sounds a lot like Flagg.

Kirilenko was a generational defender in every way. He used his combination of length and leaping to become an amazing shot-blocker, averaging between 2.7 and 3.6 blocks per-36 minutes for his first five NBA seasons. He was just as effective in the passing lanes, averaging a shade under two steals per game for his first four seasons. Kirilenko’s physical gifts were obvious, but he also had incredible defensive awareness for knowing when to rotation and how to get a piece of the ball.

Flagg’s defense was his calling card coming into Duke, with eight steals and four blocks in the U17 gold medal game solidifying his reputation. Flagg is going to carry a much bigger offensive usage rate than Kirilenko ever did — AK47’s career usage rate is 18.6, while Flagg’s is currently 30.7 — so he shouldn’t be expected to be this good defensively, but Maine native will still absolutely be a terror on that end.

Beyond the defense, Kirilenko was also an awesome passer who averaged more than four assists per game twice in his career. Flagg is a similarly skilled passer for his size. Flagg’s NBA role will be totally different from Kirilenko’s, but the ability to fit his game into any potential hole on his team is similar to what made AK47 special.

Grant Hill

The original Duke super freshman, Hill was a 6’8 supernova who was so popular that he led the 1995 NBA All-Star Game in fan voting as a rookie. Hill’s game was ridiculously well-rounded: he was an impact defender, a great passer, an elite ball handler, and an annual 20+ point-per-game scorer until ankle injuries ruined his career. His versatility at his size offers an obvious parallel to Flagg, but something else jumped out to me watching the tape.

Hill was absurdly explosive athletically. His career mixtape is full of poster slams. I think Flagg’s explosiveness is a bit under-appreciated: he’s a killer run-and-jump athlete. The ability to serve facial dunks is shared by both Hill and Flagg.

The main difference was that Hill was fantastic as a ball handler, but that’s still an area of growth for Flagg. Hill had the ball on a string as a handler, busting out some amazing crossovers in before attacking the basket with force in his prime. Flagg’s ball handling is the shakiest part of his game to this point, but he has plenty of time to improve it.

Scottie Pippen

Pippen is the greatest second banana in NBA history with six championship rings to show for it. He also proved he was one hell of a leading man when Michael Jordan took his baseball sabbatical. Pippen averaged 22 points, 5.6 assists, 8.7 rebounds, and 2.9 steals per game during an electric 1993-1994 season when he finally broke 25 percent usage for the first time in his career.

Pippen will forever be remembered as the one of the greatest defenders ever. He was also one of the greatest passing forwards the league has ever seen. The intersection of defense, passing, and athletic explosiveness is something Flagg can hope to emulate throughout his career. The Duke star may never be as creative as a passer as Pippen was, but his ability to act in a similar point-forward role will be crucial to his long-term success.

For as great as Flagg can be defensively, he’s never going to hound the ball the way Pippen did against speedy guards. A better comparison might be the way Pippen roamed around off the ball defensively. NBA fans only got a fleeting glimpse of what Pippen could do with his own team, but Flagg will likely be set up for it from the start of his career.

Franz Wagner

Wagner is my pick for the most underrated player in the NBA. The Orlando Magic forward is two-way monster as a versatile 6’10 forward. Wagner is a capable pick-and-roll operator, a disruptive defender, an improving shooter, and a solid passer. It only takes one look at the on-off stats to see how impactful Wagner has been for the Magic.

Wagner’s usage rate has steadily climbed during his NBA career, from 21.2 percent as a rookie to 31.1 percent this year. Flagg is already operating at a 30+ percent usage rate at Duke, which has been one of the bigger surprises of his freshman year. Wagner wasn’t always a natural at carrying a high usage, but he’s started to build a bag over the years. This turnaround jumper which is almost impossible to contest for players as big as Wagner and Flagg.

The common thread between all these players is big forwards with two-way versatility. Flagg’s game is inspired by many (mostly Larry Bird and ‘86 Celtics), but remains all his own. He’s going to have his own idiosyncratic style, and will one day spawn his own copycats. For now, his game feels like it has a foot in the past while also pushing the game towards the future.

Check out our latest 2025 NBA mock draft

Check out my reported feature from September on how Cooper Flagg can define the next generation of basketball stardom, featuring quotes from the adults who helped shape his game from an early age.

We should have another mock draft coming after the tournament. Here’s our pre-March Madness board. You can read more thoughts on these players with our extended March Madness mock draft last week.

This post was originally published on this site