NBA analyst breaks down why Cooper Flagg is a special prospect
When the Mavericks won the draft lottery on May 12, it was obvious who was going to be the top overall pick – it would have been the same for any team, as Duke's Cooper Flagg was the bona fide top player in the 2025 class. The consensus No. 1 recruit in his high school class, Flagg lived up to the hype with the Blue Devils, winning National Player of the Year as a true freshman and leading his team to an ACC Title and an appearance in the Final Four.
But just how good can Cooper Flagg be? Maxwell Baumbach, an NBA analyst with No Ceilings NBA, says that the expectations match the talent. He uses a number of metrics to outline just how productive Flagg was as a freshman at Duke, including BPM, or box plus-minus, which measures "a player's contribution in points above league average per 100 possessions played."
He notes that this stat means even more when talking about younger players who don't necessarily have the physical maturity that older players do. Flagg had the 10th-best box plus-minus since 2008, and the third-highest for a freshman in that time period, trailing only Zion Williamson and Anthony Davis.
"This is all the more impressive when you consider that Flagg was only 17 years old at the start of the season. He should’ve been in high school, not putting together one of the most productive seasons in the history of college basketball," he said of the young phenom.
Baumbach also says that Flagg is a "legitimately good shooting prospect" on top of being a "versatile, impactful on-ball defender" who is great defensively "up and down the positional spectrum." Throw in his ability as a playmaker, where he is "far ahead of the pack" with an "ability to make advanced reads," and you have an extremely productive prospect.
"It's hard to picture a more well-rounded, productive forward prospect than Cooper Flagg. Accounting for his age, it's all the more impressive," he concludes. "He put together one of the greatest individual seasons in college basketball this century, and he did it as a kid who walked onto campus as a 17-year-old. Even better, his game is all tailor-made to the modern association."
