Duke coach Jon Scheyer said he will never forget the day Brian Scalabrine introduced him to eventual No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg. Identifying the superstar prospect from Maine, convincing him to play his college basketball at Duke and utilizing his talents en route to the Final Four shaped much of Scheyer’s upward trajectory as one of the top coaches in the sport early in his Blue Devils tenure. And it all started with a text from Scalabrine.
Scalabrine, an 11-year NBA veteran and now a broadcast analyst for the Boston Celtics, caught wind of Flagg’s abilities during his rise as a budding high school standout. He started spreading the word and gave Scheyer a heads up.
“I told [Scalabrine] he gave me the most important text of my life,” Scheyer said on SiriusXM NBA Radio. “And then we spoke on the phone. We’re fortunate to get these calls a good amount about a kid and this and that. There’s a part of you that’s like, ‘Alright, how good is this kid from Maine really? Like, come on.’ … And then you see him play, and it’s like, ‘Alright, I know exactly what Scal was talking about.'”
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Before the spring of 2022, only smaller schools had extended scholarship offers to Flagg. A couple of power programs entered the mix that April, and Duke offered Flagg on May 15. His recruitment blew up, and more than a year later, he narrowed his decision down to UConn and Duke and took visits to each program. Flagg committed to Scheyer’s Blue Devils in Oct. 2023, reclassified to the 2024 cycle and arrived at Duke as the unquestioned No. 1 player in the recruiting class.
Flagg landed at Duke with monumental expectations, and he perhaps even exceeded them in a remarkable freshman season. The consensus first-team All-American won numerous National Player of the Year awards and led the Blue Devils on their deepest NCAA Tournament run of the Scheyer era. He averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.4 steals per game and led Duke in each of those categories.
That he paced the team in the five major statistics was all the more impressive considering Duke produced a trio of top-10 picks in Wednesday’s first round of the 2025 NBA Draft.
“I think the magic with Coop, though,” Scheyer said, “is being around him every day, where you truly appreciate how much he impacts winning, how much he makes you better. That, for me, has been a pleasure. It’s been an honor to be around him every day this year.”
Flagg is now Dallas-bound after the Mavericks followed through with the obvious plan to select the Duke product at No. 1 overall.
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