Next year, everyone will be busy talking about Cooper Flagg, the newly arrived Duke power forward who projects to become a major NBA star, and one of the most influential wing defenders in the league.In 2023, when Victor Wembanyama was the grand prize of the draft lottery, the amount of tanking teams was lower than anticipated, and probably lower than it should have been.
At 6-foot-9, freakishly athletic, with a keen defensive sense already at just 17, it's difficult to see a scenario where Flagg doesn't pan out in some capacity. A whole list of things will have to go wrong for Flagg to bottom out entirely. A list that, frankly, would be outright unrealistic. Of course, the skeptic would argue that there is only one Cooper Flagg, so why bother having 10 teams angling for him?