Twitter Gold: Cooper Flagg Highlights From Duke’s Visit To Boston College
When we first started to hear rumors about a hyper-talented kid named Cooper Flagg, as always, what they gave us first were dunks.
And to be sure, Flagg can dunk. He’s really athletic.
What those early hype videos didn’t prepare you for are the full range of skills he has.
This collection of highlights from this Saturday’s Boston College game is much more representative of his amazing talents.
There are some fairly standard things - dunks, of course - he had two tremendous slams against the Eagles - but much more than that.
There are blocks. There are great passes like the one he hits Khaman Maluach with at :34 here.
Then there are steals. In one of our favorite plays, he takes the ball from a BC player and loses his balance. While sliding on his back, he still finds Mason Gillis and gets the ball to him (Gillis had a turnover, but that doesn’t negate the brilliance of what Flagg did).
There’s a tremendous spin move in the lane and then after where he stares down Jayden Hastings in a I’m-Cooper-Flagg-who-the-hell-are-you moment.
There are assists, three point shots and more.
No one should saddle Flagg with the Larry Bird comparison. Bird was a magician and a cold-blooded on-court sociopath.
This much, though you can say: like Bird, he can influence the game directly and indirectly. He can go into takeover mode and just dominate. Or, at times, he can see that the game is going through, say, Kon Knueppel, and moves the flow towards him.
And that doesn’t even get into his court awareness on defense.
We found Zion Williamson’s time at Duke jaw-dropping. He did things we hadn’t seen before and haven’t seen since, but the most underappreciated aspect of his game was his intelligence for basketball.
Flagg is not Williamson’s athletic equal, but he’s just as smart and his ability to dominate the game, while not as dramatic, is every bit as strong as was Williamson’s.
Enjoy the show while you can. We won't see this again anytime soon.