5 months in the past USA Basketball convened an inter-squad scrimmage in Las Vegas earlier than the Paris Olympics, and the standout participant was a gawky teenager from Maine.
On that heady July day, Cooper Flagg confirmed flashes of his sky-high potential, out-jumping Bam Adebayo for a put-back layup, spinning off Jrue Vacation for a baseline jumper and burying a nook three over an outstretched Anthony Davis to key a close to upset of Staff USA’s “Monstars.” One NBA head coach in attendance referred to as Flagg the Thirteenth-best participant within the fitness center (behind Indiana Pacers main man Tyrese Halliburton and Boston Celtics level guard Derrick White, ostensibly), whereas Kevin Durant endorsed Flagg’s on court docket sangfroid as “a superb signal.” Because the clips of Flagg’s exercise circulated on-line, hoops followers couldn’t assist speculating in regards to the additional harm the 6ft 9in teen terror would possibly do in faculty basketball.
Flagg, who turns 18 on Saturday, has been as compelling on the court docket in his first 12 months at Duke, pacing the group in scoring and rebounding because the No 5-ranked Blue Devils zoomed to a 9-2 season begin. He ranks among the many most efficient freshmen within the nation at the same time as he continues to work on ending on the rim and flattening jumpers. Greater than stats, it’s the freshman ahead’s excessive depth, hustle and efficacy on defensive that standout most proper now. (“We ain’t had no bad-ass, cold-ass white boy like this in a very long time,” former teen phenom Kevin Garnett stated on his podcast. “I can see youngsters desirous to be like that and play like that.”) In previous years these traits would’ve doomed Flagg to school hoops infamy as the most recent white supervillain to don a Blue Devils jersey. However within the dawning period of anti-wokeness, Flagg is poised to turn into an much more daunting determine in sports activities lore: the subsequent nice white hope, Caitlin Clark 2.0.
You thought Clark broke the basketball discourse? Clark no less than gave her informal observers time to show her right into a tradition warrior. Flagg, as ESPN’s Jay Bilas famous, is “the preferred export from Maine since lobster,” a journal cowl boy with a sturdy social media following who hyperlinks to his Hollywood reps in his bios. He’s a one-and-done faculty star, headed for the 2025 NBA draft as quickly as Duke’s season is completed – and a 3rd of it’s already gone. With too a brief runway for a slow-building villain arc, Flagg is pressured to chop proper to the chase. He should do in 4 months what took Clark 4 years to perform, and that’s flip faculty basketball right into a politically charged public sq.. Once more.
You thought Clark was a people hero in Iowa? Flagg’s rural Maine neighborhood threw a parade after he led his highschool group to its first ever state championship as a freshman, with fireplace vehicles and fireworks. On lengthy rides to and from video games, he watched recreation footage from the Boston Celtics’ 1986 NBA championship-winning season on a transportable DVD participant. He patterned his recreation after Larry Chicken’s, taking within the full catalog of the top fakes and footwork. His mother and father have been each standout basketball gamers, and his twin brother, Ace (who’s 6ft 8in), has a future taking part in faculty ball, too. (He’s nonetheless in highschool.) Basically, Cooper was fated to turn into the stuff of basketball legend.
An early faculty enrollee, Flagg arrived at Duke boasting endorsement offers with New Stability and Gatorade. No disrespect to Clark, however he’s not a shiny basketball comet streaking throughout a soccer campus; he’s white-knighting it from faculty hoop’s ivory tower – the perennial primetime TV draw that produced prime NBA draft picks Kyrie Irving, Zion Williamson and Paolo Banchero. Flagg is projected to turn into the varsity’s third prime choose since 2019 – the 12 months Williamson crossed the draft stage wearing all white after the New Orleans Pelicans referred to as his title. Flagg, who’s being touted as the most effective faculty prospect since Williamson, footage an identical second for himself. “[Going first] is one thing each child desires of,” he instructed the Washington Put up. “I’m undoubtedly working towards that.” When one other faculty child desires large like this, it’s candy; when it’s a Dukie harboring visions of grandeur, one can’t assist detecting notes of white privilege.
That’s not a touch upon Flagg, staunch ally to the deprived. (Most notably, he helps the Ronald McDonald Home, a charity that gives free room and board to households with kids in hospital care.) That’s a touch upon Duke, the predominantly white bastion of excellence that produced medicine warfare czar Richard Nixon, Maga sith lord Stephen Miller and the white supremacist Richard Spencer. The Blue Devils don’t have regional followers; they’ve a nationwide community of true believers. They camp exterior the group’s enviornment to purchase tickets. They stoke a blood feud with North Carolina, an elite basketball energy simply eight miles southwest. And so they taunt visiting groups with campaign-style opposition analysis – a lot in order that the coed authorities convened a DEI city corridor earlier this 12 months simply to encourage Duke basketball supporters to “heckle responsibly”. It’s the type of factor you’ll be able to rely on Magaworld to grab on the second they really feel Flagg has been handled unjustly – whether or not by opposing gamers or the refs and even members of his personal group.
To mark the retirement of Mike Krzyzewski, the coach most chargeable for constructing Duke into walled backyard it’s right this moment, the sports activities boffin Bomani Jones curated a pop-up exhibition in Harlem’s Schomburg Heart for Analysis in Black Tradition that Coach Ok’s traumatizing impact on Black gamers, groups and communities. Christian Laettner (who as soon as stomped on a rival’s chest), Grayson Allen (who knocked over anybody who bought in his approach) and Lakers coach JJ Redick (who famously aggravated opponent by habitually intruding on their private area) are just some of the Duke luminaries who dwell in faculty hoops infamy. “I as soon as dribbled the ball throughout half court docket towards Bobby Hurley, and he simply fell for no cause,” explains former Michigan star Jalen Rose, a dwell exhibit within the Jones sketch. “They referred to as a cost. Goddamn flopper.”
Nonetheless: at the same time as these Duke large bads have been completely vilified of their day whereas maintaining the group in rivalry for nationwide titles (and the Blue Devils rank fifth all-time with 5 altogether), the racial and cultural politics of their villainy have been largely confined to the basketball court docket. If a pol or a pundit weighed in on their conditions, it was as a result of there was a real rooting curiosity at stake – not some bigger level to show to their political allies. In our present age of digital restlessness, nonetheless, all the pieces is in bounds. A tough foul on Clark is justifiable trigger for a sitting member of Congress to write down an open letter condemning the play as a “low cost shot.” Flagg ought to think about himself lucky that Clark trolls have been blissfully unaware of his excellent observe with Staff USA. It’s not onerous to think about them advocating for him to make the roster over a much more deserving NBA vet, simply to see a token Dukie on a dream group once more.
You thought Clark warped wider expectations of the WNBA? That league no less than has white gamers on the prime of the draft each on occasion. Flagg is bidding to turn into the primary white American since Indiana’s Kent Benson in 1977 to go first within the NBA draft. Which is simply one other approach of claiming he’s being tapped to make basketball nice once more, to rescue it from its Black-coded swagger and multinational influences. But when there’s trigger for non-Dukies to root for Flagg, it’s that, like Clark, he’s not making an attempt to be rather more than a humble teen from Maine. “For me, it’s about simply taking part in basketball,” Flagg stated. “So far as hype and all that goes, that’s one thing that you simply be taught to cope with.” That he ain’t seen nothing but ought to have these inclined to get pleasure from his recreation for what it’s and will sometime turn into bracing for absolutely the worst.
Supply hyperlink
