Cooper Flagg is a problem
But let's not over-hype him
The Olympics have been an awesome reprieve from the usual summer sports drought, but we’re still getting a healthy serving of summer college basketball filler, mainly around a certain Duke recruit. Once again, Duke has “the most coveted recruit, the center of breathless anxiety at college campuses across the country,” a player who is “one of the most talented freshman to come into Duke ever” with a game that’s “seriously damn near impossible to find a flaw.”
Once again, the ole quote bait-n-switch. Those quotes are about another Duke diaper dandy, Jabari Parker — not Cooper Flagg. Flagg hasn’t played a college game yet, but he’s the betting favorite1 for national player of the year and the top pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, making him the most hyped freshman since A.J. Dybantsa2 Jabari Parker Zion Williamson.
Freshman Years of Top Recruits
The cheeky opening, along with my previous post showing NBA success is no guarantee for top recruits, continues the theme that hype doesn’t always translate to production and wins. Today, we’ll take the same cohort of recruits from the NBA post3 and look at their freshman season production, measured by win shares.
Win shares attempt to divvy up a team’s wins between its players, serving as an imperfect proxy for a player’s overall contribution to winning. The chart below shows the freshman win shares for our top recruits, as well as the highest win shares for a teammate, with the color showing the depth of a March Madness run.
It’s an inexact science to map win shares to accolades4, but 6.5+ puts you in the running for all-conference, conference POY and All-American honors. National POY winners are in the 8.0+ range5.
The top recruits average about 5.5 WS, with their best teammate contributing roughly the same, and the average tourney run lasted until the Sweet 16. Any players below the line mean they were the “best player” on the team, while players above the line were carried by an even more productive teammate.
To round out the Jabari Parker opening, he had a slightly above-average WS but had slightly below-average support from Rodney Hood (4.9 WS), and Duke flamed out of the first round vs Mercer. So we’ll take preseason media hype with a grain of salt.
Cooper Flagg’s Scenarios
Using that data, we can come up with some more realistic scenarios for Cooper Flagg and Duke:
Base Case: Flagg is a dominant but not otherworldly player, in line with many of the other uber-talented players in the chart. He makes First Team All-ACC and contends for ACC POY. The rest of the team plays well, but no one else ascends to All-ACC levels. Duke makes the Sweet 16 or Elite 8 (which are still decent seasons on the blue blood scorecard).
Worst Case: Flagg is a strong player but none of the supporting cast grows to contender status. Duke makes (another) early tourney exit.
Best Case: Flagg is a Zion- or AD-like force, contending for national POY. The rest of the team complements him enough to allow for a Final Four run and title potential.
There are lots of interesting tidbits in the chart, but it basically breaks down to:
Thinking Duke can win the title if Flagg plays at AD levels is a high, high bar
Other talented players — with talented teammates — have had wonderfully productive seasons and not made deep tourney runs
Even if Flagg is dominant, he’ll need some help, and Duke doesn’t have an obvious second star like it has on past teams
The fact that other loaded teams, like the Zion Duke team or the KAT Kentucky team, didn’t win titles proves how difficult it is for freshmen-led teams to cut down the nets. Anthony Davis delivered the only title of the cohort by posting a monster 9.9 WS. AD’s defense impacted games in a way Flagg can’t, but Khaman Maluach’s length might allow him to play the paint protector role for Duke.
For Flagg’s supporting cast, the mix of returning players (Tyrese Proctor, Caleb Foster), transfers6 (Maliq Brown, Mason Gillis) and other top freshmen (Maluach) have enough talent to provide the secondary star, but all are unproven. After a promising freshman campaign, Proctor had an uneven and injury-slowed sophomore year, ranking fifth on the team in win shares (3.3). He figures to be the lead guard but would need to take a major step to complement Flagg and vault Duke to the Final Four and beyond.
In terms of playing style and team make-up, Paolo Banchero might be Flagg’s closest comparison. Paolo put together All-ACC and third team All-American season. Surrounded by a talented team that made the Final Four (but we all know how that ended). Repeating that level of success means Flagg needs to play at Paolo levels, Maluach needs to play at Mark Williams7 levels, and other players need to replicate Trevor Keels, Jeremy Roach and Wendell Moore. All of those are possible for this Duke team, especially Flagg’s contribution. But hitting all of them is a tall order, so summer hype carries little weight in March.
The point of this post isn’t to dunk on highly touted freshmen for not winning titles — it’s just the opposite. The hype can be a disservice when the bar is set at transcendent and anything below is deemed a failure. Cooper Flagg will have a strong year, and he gives Duke a chance to hang their first banner in a decade. But let’s savor his greatness (and maybe wait for him play a game) rather than measure him on an unrealistic scale.
Technically co-favorite based on the odds of RJ Davis and Hunter Dickinson
The opening (and post overall) lampoons the summer hype used to fill empty sports pages. The fact the praise heaped on Flagg after playing against Team USA was so quickly eclipsed by Dybantsa hype is too perfect
Generally the top ranked recruit from the past 11 classes, as well as a few cherry-picked players that caught my eye
For example, Zach Edey won National POY this year with a staggering 10.5 WS
You’ll notice from the chart that Paolo actually wasn’t the highest WS player on that team. Mark Williams had a higher WS, showing his defensive value