CHICAGO — The town of Newport, Maine, has a population of about 3,200 people. There’s a bowling alley, a popular local diner that serves breakfast all day, a hunting club and it costs only $6 to license your dog.
It is a quintessential small New England town. It is not known for developing NBA stars.
Cooper Flagg was undeterred.
Flagg played his lone college year at Duke, finished high school in Florida at Montverde Academy and presumably soon will be moving to Dallas to play for the Mavericks, the team that has the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. But he’s still just an 18-year-old from Maine, a small-town kid who says “please” and “thank you” and seems completely unphased by being labeled basketball’s next big thing.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re from,” Flagg said at the draft combine. “If you have a goal, if you have a dream and you put your mind to it … I mean, honestly, for me it wasn’t real until I was in high school, but I always loved the game of basketball. I always put the work in. I always wanted to be the best that I could be.”
The only player who lists Maine as his birthplace and played in the NBA this season is Miami Heat guard Duncan Robinson. There are a couple of players — current Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle among them — who went to the NBA after spending at least some of their college career at the University of Maine. But the basketball history, at least at the NBA level, of the Pine Tree State isn’t exactly rich.
Flagg — who should be a high school senior right now in Newport, then decided to reclassify and go to college early — could soon change that.
“I’m so proud of this guy, what he’s done,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said at the Final Four. “I have to remind myself it’s a year early. He should be graduating high school now. To have the season that he’s had, I think the stats speak for itself. I think how hard he plays, the highlights, all those things speaks for itself. But it’s the person he is every day.”
Flagg is starting to settle into his new reality.
He’s been considered the presumptive No. 1 pick in the NBA draft for some time and now knows that pick is held by the Mavericks — winners of the draft lottery. Flagg was at the lottery along with a handful of other draft picks, all of whom met NBA Commissioner Adam Silver briefly before the event started.
It’s a rare Texas two-step of No. 1 picks for Dallas. The Dallas Wings had the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft and took UConn’s Paige Bueckers, and now the Mavericks will follow as holders of a No. 1 pick.
This one-city, two-No. 1-picks double has happened only once before — 2003, when the Cleveland Rockers chose LaToya Thomas and the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted LeBron James two months later.
“I’m grateful to get this opportunity, any opportunity to any team, to be able to hear my name called on draft night and shake Adam Silver’s hand,” Flagg said. “I’m just really excited for this whole opportunity. The environment, just go through this process, not everybody gets to do this, so I just feel really blessed.”
In Dallas, Flagg could join a roster with fellow former Duke players Kyrie Irving and Dereck Lively II — and be part of a new chapter for the Mavericks, who saw their fan base rocked in February by the decision to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers.
“As far as Dallas goes, they’ve got a lot of really good pieces,” Flagg said. “D-Live, coming from Duke, that’s pretty cool. So I think it would be a really cool opportunity.”
Flagg has gone through the rigors of the draft combine, getting height, weight, vertical leap and various sizes measured, along with hitting the court for some shooting, agility and speed drills.
He averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists while leading Duke to the Final Four in his lone college season. He shot 48% from the field, 39% from 3-point range, 84% from the foul line and was The Associated Press’ national player of the year.
He’s done Duke, and Montverde, and Maine proud. He has no plans on stopping now.
“Growing up in Maine, there’s people that told me I would never be able to make it to the next level or play Division I basketball because I’m from Maine and nobody plays up there,” Flagg said. “I think just that message of ‘it doesn’t matter where you’re from,’ as long as you work hard and trust yourself and trust your ability, then you can really accomplish anything.”
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