DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Cooper Flagg wants to keep things simple.
Basketball first. Treat the extra attention and hype as an afterthought, as best he can anyway.
The versatile 6-foot-9, 205-pound forward for No. 7 Duke arrived as the nation’s top recruit and heads into the season as a potential No. 1 overall NBA draft pick. Hype is churning at pedal-to-floor speed with his college debut looming. Managing that will be key in what is an all-but-certain single college season for Flagg.
It wasn’t that long ago that Zion Williamson captured every camera as Duke’s freshman star. Now it’s Flagg’s turn.
“As far as hype and all that goes, that’s something that you learn to deal with,” Flagg said. “For me, it’s about just playing basketball.”
The Blue Devils open the season Monday against Maine, Flagg's home-state program. But the buzz in Durham has rolled since Jon Scheyer won the recruiting battle with two-time reigning national champion UConn to land Flagg.
The McDonald's All-American turned heads with his play against veteran NBA stars during a July scrimmage on the U.S. Olympic team. He is only the ninth freshman named to The Associated Press preseason All-American team that dates to the 1986-87 season. And earlier this week, he became the first men’s college basketball player to reach an endorsement deal with Gatorade.
All before he turns 18 (in December).
Scheyer, entering his third season as successor to retired Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski, doesn’t sound worried. He commends Flagg's approach in practices and his work ethic. The 37-year-old coach has seen it in moments like arriving at the gym for a 6 a.m. workout only to find Flagg already shooting in the gym.
“He’s a confident player, a real confident player, which is great,” Scheyer said. “But he wants direction. He wants to be told when he’s not doing something as well as he can or as hard as he can. And that’s blown me away."
Flagg has a soft touch with his shot and passing that works in catch-and-fire situations from 3-point range, off the dribble in midrange or in the post. His length allows him to shoot over most perimeter defenders and block shots at the other end. But it's about more than physical skills.
"Everything that he does, it appears to me, is borne out of trying to win, as a competitor," said Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley, the former Duke All-American point guard who got an up-close look at Flagg during an exhibition game last weekend. "That’s going to carry him a long way. He’s got amazing and diverse skillsets and all that great stuff. But he plays with that fire at both ends of the floor that you look for.”
There is little question that Flagg’s game will translate to college basketball, even as the sport features older and more developed players.
It’s managing everything else: the dissection of every on-court moment, selfie and autograph requests, or simply eyes that get wider when spotting him in public.
Associate head coach Chris Carrawell has seen it before. The former Blue Devils teammate of big program names like Elton Brand, Jay Williams and Shane Battier returned to join Krzyzewski’s staff in time for Williamson’s supernova 2018-19 season, filled with highlight-reel dunks and levels of attention bordering on spectacle on his way to becoming AP national player of the year and the top overall NBA draft pick.
“I won’t say Cooper is at that level yet,” Carrawell said. “But I mean, this is how you know: when a non-basketball fan asks you in the grocery store: ‘That Cooper Flagg guy …’ You’re like, ‘You don’t watch basketball every day!’ But they know, they know about him.”
Andy Bedard, a former player at Boston College and Maine, remembers how the word spread, too. Not about Flagg as the NBA prospect; rather, it was about the standout youngster playing up multiple age levels in northern Maine. Bedard, who knew Flagg's mother Kelly from her time playing at Maine, soon got a look at Cooper's game.
“He was like third grade playing in a fifth- and sixth-grade league,” Bedard said. "You wouldn't know it because he was the same height if not taller than everybody else even with that difference because he was big at an early age. But he was playing like a guard. It wasn't ‘Go on the block and put it back in.’ Watching him move, I'm like, ‘Hmm, this is different.’”
Bedard went on to form the AAU team that would feature Cooper, his brother Ace, and Bedard's son Kaden, and their families became close. That team eventually started beating the other top instate teams by lopsided margins before playing more games in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, and word began to spread about Cooper's talent.
Bedard recalled when the team competed in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League circuit one year that tournament organizers arranged additional security to help manage crowds. Flagg eventually transferred from Maine's Nokomis Regional High School near his hometown in Newport to Florida's Montverde Academy to close his prep career.
Bedard recalling how Flagg would play golf and sometimes finish a round to find people waiting at the clubhouse to see him.
“I just take it as a compliment, try to be respectful of everybody, even if I’m not in the best mood or I’m not having the best day,” Flagg said. “People are wanting to see you and wanting to support you. So I think it’s just handling that the right way, and then just focus on basketball.”
Freshman wing Darren Harris described his classmate as someone who “just tries to be a normal kid." And in a nod to the added attention that follows Flagg's every move, graduate forward Mason Gillis — part of Purdue's run to the NCAA title game last season — playfully applauded from the back of the room when Flagg wrapped up an interview with reporters.
“He's a great guy, handles his business, does things the way he's supposed to do them,” Gillis said. "I think he has a lot of pressure already and as a 17-year-old, and he's handling it perfectly.”
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