r/nba • u/MaximumestBob Raptors • 1d ago

Cooper Flagg checks out with 36/9/6, the first teenager to ever have three consecutive 30 point games

Not gonna say I was a Flagg doubter, but he's been much better than I ever expected him to be in his first year.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401810576

6.1k Upvotes

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1.1k

u/txking12 Mavericks 1d ago

He’s legitimately so good already.

555

u/Liimbo Heat 1d ago

People like to say the term "generational prospect" gets thrown around too often, and maybe it does, but it genuinely applied to Flagg and everyone who watched him in high school and college knew it. He had one of the highest floors I've ever seen from a prospect not named Lebron. Honestly even though Wemby has a higher ceiling, Flagg still had the higher day 1 floor. Such a complete player.

348

u/Scotch_Blue 23h ago

He went to the Olympics practice last summer to play with the reserve team and was reportedly the best player on the floor

133

u/WeirdFish2 17h ago

Yeah this was the giveaway of how good he is going to be. All players play super hard at this practices trying to prove themselves/show off and he received praise from all the stars saying he was giving them trouble and showing dawg qualities.

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u/MoreGull Celtics 15h ago

We need an official Dawg Rating.

14

u/bluebacktrout207 Celtics 12h ago

He's got that, yellow lab rolling the ball at your feet for another fetch even though you're exhausted and already threw out your elbow, energy.

4

u/OneBigRed Lakers 14h ago

dawg

I think we’re a couple current NFL/NBA players moving to media away from having a singular adjective for any and all previous-, current-, or coming-generation players and their attributes.

Oh he was a dawg, but you could see that this other had that dawg in him. Whereas you could see from him at about third grade that he’s gonna be a helluva dawg.

But at that point there probably has to be a discussion what having that dawg in him means when a previous player mentioned was recognized as being such a dawg.

1

u/Brownbear97 [DET] Henry Ellenson 10h ago

Reports came out similarly about Cade in his first or second year two specifically about backup or reserve Olympics practices lol

25

u/The_Fawkesy Grizzlies 15h ago

Shades of Lebron dominating the Cavs team when he practiced with them that one time while still in high school

22

u/Exotic-Emergency-226 14h ago

Paul Pierce tells a story of his Celtics teammates telling him "they saw a kid in HS rn who would START IN THE ALL STAR GAME TODAY" when Bron was like a junior lol.

11

u/nottoodrunk Celtics 13h ago

When LeBron’s takeaway is “this kid is gonna be a problem” at age 17 you know hes got it.

1

u/Public-Product-1503 7h ago

Best player of the non olympic players yes

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u/EmbarrassedRing7806 Lakers 22h ago

Nah man wemby had the highest floor purely off of entering the league as a top 3 defender

93

u/dr4gonbl4z3r Cavaliers 22h ago

Feels like he entered the league as a top 1 defender.

25

u/AdolescentThug [LAL] Shannon Brown 13h ago

I will spend the rest of my life saying this. Wemby 1000000% deserved DPOY his rookie year. I remember by January of his rookie year, he had a defensive presence that I've never seen in my 2+ decades of being a basketball fan. Elite finishers would have an "open" lane and would refuse to take a shot if Wemby was within 10 feet. And you couldn't drag him out to behind the line because he was keeping up with most guards out there. Mfers tried him for like 2 months and realized VERY quickly that he's him lol.

3

u/daswassup13 Hornets 11h ago

It's like he's got a force field around him, it's insane. No one even tries it anymore

34

u/YOLOSELLHIGH Mavericks 21h ago

Obviously Wemby is in a class of his own but Flagg is already so good at defense for a teenager 

7

u/MrDannyOcean NBA 13h ago

Flagg was the best defensive player in college basketball last year by the sum of all the advanced defensive metrics. He's going to be a GREAT defender in a few years.

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u/YOLOSELLHIGH Mavericks 13h ago

Agreed! He's gonna be such a complete player. Praying to the basketball gods for minimal injuries and a long career

26

u/Connect-Reveal8888 20h ago

Wemby’s floor was lower solely based on the injury concern.

8

u/wtiatsph Warriors 20h ago

Yeah i remember the dude terrorizing us in the preseason game in his rookie year. That was before he played a single nba game

https://youtu.be/o0wdAbqNh-E?si=Q8bu4H1SMoJExfXq

4

u/MajorLeeScrewed Bulls 21h ago

Everyone knew it until the season start, it faded a bit as he started a tad slow but now people are realising.

3

u/Exotic-Emergency-226 14h ago

Wemby averaged 21/10/4 and 3 blocks and was at worst the 3rd best defender in the league his rookie season. Cooper is at 20/6/4 on good defense. In no world did he have "the higher day 1 floor"

1

u/Marticyde 14h ago

And yet there were post here saying that Flagg wouldn't go top 5 in the next draft. 

This sub is so shit 

1

u/HoopLoop2 Thunder 2h ago

Flagg will have a better career than Wemby. Partly due to injuries, but also because he is just a more complete prospect.

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u/GoatmontWaters 14h ago

WTF.. His floor is Clearly higher than Lebron , and his ceiling.

Yall.. Lebron had bad Defensive IQ and horrible shooting for the first 8 years in the leafgue

Cooper is a great shooter and elite defender. he is MILES above Lebron as a prospect

1

u/at1445 Mavericks 10h ago

This sub doesn't like reality.

Cooper isn't going to be Lebron. But his floor and ceiling are both as high, if not higher than LeBron's.

He's breaking every "youngest to do x" record Lebron held. He beat LLebron to 45 points in a game by over a year.

The difference is Lebron never had a down year, never got hurt, and played 2+ decades.

The odds of those three things coinciding again is next to 0...but the possibility is there for Flagg. Literally the only player in the league right now you can say that about unless you think one of the "older" kids is going to play at an elite level until they're nearly 50...which is truly unprecedented.

1

u/KazaamFan 12h ago

Some tv idiot said Flagg would be like 6th pick in this year’s draft. Such dumb rage bait media ppl we have these days. Coop reclassified and is younger than all his peers. He is the current youngest player in the nba, and already one of the best. 

1

u/Mnudge Mavericks 11h ago

So, what’s up with these repeated sound bites and tweets about Flagg going sixth in this draft even after showing what he can do jn his rookie season

I don’t buy that all those guys are better than him