After his 49 point outburst against Kon Knueppel and the Charlotte Hornets, Cooper Flagg followed up with another gem against the Houston Rockets, finishing with 34 points, 12 rebounds and 5 assists. He’s really taken his game to another level and it’s hard at times to remember that he’s still a teenager.
Who does this? He’s in pretty elite company.
What’s really interesting in these highlights is that he’s frequently going right at future Hall of Famer Kevin Durant, and there’s not much Durant can do to stop him. You can see his frustration here as Flagg repeatedly abuses him. In fact, after one Flagg basket, Durant slaps the ball hard enough that it pops up and hits the backboard. We saw a similarly helpless reaction the other night from Joel Embiid as he threw his hands up, realizing there was simply nothing he could do to stop him.
What’s really interesting about Flagg’s development is this: remember at the beginning of the season when coach Jason Kidd said he wanted to stress Flagg by playing him at the point? At the time, Flagg struggled a bit and a lot of people thought he was overrated, but Kidd was playing a longer game.
Flagg learned and he now he’s playing the entire court. He has point guard skills and he can defend inside. He can shoot, drive, handle, and the last weak point in his game is his three point shooting, which he’ll improve dramatically by next season.
Book it.
When Dallas gets Kyrie Irving back, they’ll effectively have a second point guard. And two shooting guards. And two small forwards, and two power forwards and a guy who can help out at center too.
And all those guys are named Cooper Flagg.
And he’s just 19, still a skinny teenager.
Imagine where he’ll be when he adds power to his game.
Actually, while it may seem to soon to ask this question, what the hey: who would you rather build around? Luka Donca or Flagg?
We’re big fans of Luka here but his conditioning has always been an issue and despite his surreal brilliance, Doncic is slow.
You can build around a slow player – Boston built perhaps the best team of all time, the 1986 Celtics, around Larry Bird – but everyone else has to adapt to how that one guy plays.
Doncic also rarely exerts himself on defense, and that’s not an issue with Flagg at all.
Statistically, you’d have to take Doncic. He’s averaging 33.7 ppg, 7.8 rebounds and 8.8 assists. That’s spectacular.
But a guy to build an entire team around? Flagg probably has more upside in that sense if only because of his two-way value and his versatility.
Actually, you can ask the same question about Knueppel and you could make a reasonable argument for building around him over Doncic. Why?
Because Knueppel has dramatically changed his team’s personality. Not too long ago, everyone wanted to make trades to improve the Hornets. Get rid of LaMelo! Brandon Miller has reached his ceiling! Trade some of the other bums!
Now, Charlotte seems like a team with a brilliant future and, like Dallas with Flagg, a lot of that is down to Knueppel. Both of these guys have completely changed their teams and people are going to want to play with them because they have an old-school approach and don’t care about anything more than winning.
As great as he is, we’re not sure you can say the same thing about Doncic.
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