Despite being born in December 2006, future NBA lottery pick Cooper Flagg has a lot of respect for basketball legends that retired way before he could see them live.
In interviews with GQ Sports and SLAM Magazine earlier this month, the 17-year-old Newport native called Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player of all time, and said the 1985-86 Celtics was the greatest basketball team of all time.
“We’d have a couple-hour drive for AAU tournaments and our little Chrysler van had a movie projector that would come down the middle and we’d pop in ‘85-86 Celtics the whole championship run and watch game by game, playing the whole thing over and over again,” Flagg told CBS Sports in a July 12 article.
“I think the way they played, the way they got the ball out quickly, moved it down the court, the selflessness and unselfishness on that team of just accepting a role, doing the right things, putting your body on the line, it kind of embodies what a good team has to have. That type of influence has been invaluable to me,” he said.
Also asked to name his all-time starting five, Flagg excluded the 1985-86 season MVP Larry Bird, instead choosing Los Angeles Laker greats Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to play alongside Jordan.
Flagg played against James, Kawhi Leonard (Cooper’s choice for greatest defender ever) and the 2024 USA men’s Olympic basketball team in scrimmages with the USA Select Team last weekend, wowing coaches, players and media members alike.
One of the first highlights to come out of the Las Vegas-based scrimmages was a backdoor cut and slam dunk for Flagg, off an assist from Golden State’s All-Rookie first-teamer Brandin Podziemski — who he called his favorite teammate from the Select Team.
“I’d probably say Brandin Podziemski from the Warriors [was my favorite player to play with],” Flagg told NBC Sports at the ESPYs red carpet in Los Angeles on July 11. “Just cause he plays at such a good pace and just plays the right way.”
Flagg was awarded the Gatorade Male Player of the Year at the ESPYs, and previously won Mr. Basketball USA and the Naismith High School Boys Basketball Player of the Year Award this spring.
The only other winners of all three awards are LeBron James (2003), Andrew Wiggins of the Golden State Warriors (2013) and former Portland Trailblazer Greg Oden (2006). All three were drafted with No. 1 overall picks.