Cooper Flagg’s Potential NBA Income Is Wild

The young prodigy has a very bright financial future

This article from The Sporting News takes a stab at how much Cooper Flagg might delay if he chose to return to Duke for his sophomore season: try $400 million, give or take.

That’s based on the fact that a), he’d push his second contract back by a year in order to return and b) his maximum contract at that point would be for about $398.5 million.

There is some math involved here but you can check the link to see how all that lines up.

Basically though that works out to about $80 million a year and that’s just his NBA contract. Who knows where endorsements would go?

Obviously most people in his position would just take the money and go. There are a couple of things to keep in mind though.

First, as Grant Hill advised us, it’s not how much you make, it’s how much you save, which is sage advice. Jayson Tatum says he lives off of endorsements and invests his NBA paychecks (or maybe vice-versa) which is kind of the same idea.

Second, while Flagg is a prodigy, experience never hurts. Plenty of promising players have hit the NBA and have not been ready for it.

And third, some guys are just built different. Maybe he’s just enjoying college. Maybe he understands that this is a one-time thing and that he’ll never be 18 again.

Whatever it comes down to, we like the fact that he clearly would like to come back. He may not, arguably should not, but it’s nice to know that being at Duke means a lot to him.