Cooper Flagg is unlike your traditional presumptive No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft. Most top prospects go No. 1 because of their scoring. While Flagg — the Duke star who will be back on the court in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday afternoon — certainly provides his fair share, it’s far from his selling point. Most rookies enter the NBA as defensive projects. With the exception of Victor Wembanyama (who is an anomaly in every sense of the word), Flagg is probably the most polished defensive prospect of the decade. He’ll enter the NBA as a fairly advanced playmaker for his position with a jump shot that’s improving rapidly. He’s even hinted at bucking at recent NBA convention by eschewing the one-and-done path and remaining at Duke for another year.
Now, that little bit of rebellion almost certainly won’t come to pass. It would be financially irresponsible regardless of how much NIL money he can rake in at Duke. Top prospects don’t go one-and-done to start making rookie salaries right away. They do it to start the clock toward their second contract, the one that can pay them market rate, which they can sign after their third season and kicks in after their fourth. Every year Flagg spends at Duke is a year longer he has to wait to start making 25% of the cap. This season, that’s over $35 million. Factor in 10% annual cap growth and the possibility that he gets the 30% Rose Rule bump, and his fifth-year salary might even be above $50 million. His camp is aware of this. They’ll almost certainly steer him toward the NBA as soon as possible for that reason.
So we can assume that Flagg will be on the table at No. 1 this June. The better question then becomes, where should he go? He doesn’t have a choice in the matter, of course. He’ll go where the ping pong balls send him. But considering what an unconventional prospect we’re dealing with, it’s reasonable to say that Flagg wouldn’t thrive under the same conditions as a standard No. 1 pick. Put an elite scoring prospect on a barren team like, say, the Wizards, and he’ll shoot his way to stardom. Flagg is best-suited to a different sort of environment.
Ideally, he would go somewhere with a top scorer already in place, so his offense can develop slowly. It should be a team with some measure of frontcourt flexibility. Flagg’s assumed position is power forward. In certain contexts, the 6-foot-9 Flagg could plausibly make sense at small forward or, down the line, even center. If a team has core players locked in at those positions, it limits his upside. And, given how well-rounded his game already is, we probably want him on a winner sooner rather than later if possible. This isn’t a necessity. Most star rookies start on bad teams, but most star rookies are meant to start on bad teams. They have kinks to work out over the course of a few low-leverage seasons. Flagg is ready to win now.
So with all of that in mind, these are the best fits for Flagg in the lottery right now. We’re going to draw a cutoff at No. 10. This might seem ironic a year after Atlanta jumped from No. 11 to No. 1, but we want to cover the teams with stronger odds of landing Flagg rather than just sticking him on the best non-playoff teams. So, with that in mind, let’s start at No. 5.
Current odds for No. 1 pick: 2%
The Blazers are in a few ways the Flagg of this crop of rebuilding teams. They don’t have a traditional star-caliber prospect yet, but they’ve done a wonderful job of accumulating young and versatile role players. Rarely do lottery teams have All-Defense candidates, but Toumani Camara has a case. Deni Avdija does a little bit of everything and is locked into a very favorable deal for the next three years. Donovan Clingan is the long-term answer at center, but isn’t going to garner so much playing time that Flagg would never have a chance to play center. He wouldn’t need to as a rookie because Deandre Ayton will be playing out the final year of his contract, but it’s an option available to experiment with after that.
The question here is who Portland’s primary scorer is going to be. That’s a bit more complicated. Anfernee Simons does that now. Next year is the last of his contract, and he’s really more of a secondary scorer in a perfect situation anyway, and he’s probably a trade candidate regardless.
How about Scoot Henderson? The No. 3 overall pick in 2023 is starting to figure things out. The ultra-athletic point guard has nine 20-point games this season, with eight of them coming since January. He’s starting to make 3s somewhat consistently lately, and having a forward like Flagg that can space the floor a bit and develop a two-man game with him stands to benefit both. Henderson’s incredible speed is going to draw defenders with him, creating more room to Flagg operate with as a roller.
Henderson isn’t a surefire star, and the Blazers aren’t a conventional rebuilder. This is a team mature beyond its years, much like Flagg. While there’s more upside elsewhere, there’s something fitting about slotting him onto a team full of grown-ups. He could play meaningful basketball as a rookie here. That’s just not going to be true somewhere like Washington.
Current odds for No. 1 pick: 14%
Several Charlotte regimes have tried to translate the region’s love for college basketball into enduring love for state’s lone NBA team. The Bobcats once drafted two North Carolina Tar Heels in the same lottery back in 2005 (Raymond Felton and Sean May). Fellow-UNC legend Tyler Hansbrough ended his brief NBA career with the Hornets. There are 23 active NBA players from Duke and three of them (Mark Williams, Seth Curry and Wendell Moore Jr.) are on the Hornets’ roster. It’s never stuck. Flagg is better than any of them. Maybe he could pull it off.
The Hornets, today, are a mess. They have the NBA’s 29th-ranked offense, but the tools are there for quick improvement. Brandon Miller, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, will play only 27 games this season. LaMelo Ball carries the bulk of the Charlotte offense, and he and Flagg would benefit from a partnership. Flagg needs to limit his usage early on. Ball soaks up possessions like few players in all of basketball. Ball also plays a style that we can charitably call unstructured and thus far not conducive to winning. Ideally, he needs to be surrounded with veterans that can help keep him on script. Flagg is the rare rookie who fits that mold.
A Ball-Flagg-Miller trio would be the most talented core Charlotte has had since the Alonzo Mourning-Larry Johnson days, and the new Jeff Peterson-led front office has thus far managed its rebuild fairly well. They haven’t rushed. They’ve turned veterans like Terry Rozier and P.J. Washington into valuable picks. They’re set up for cap space in the strong free agent class of 2026. There’s potential for a quick turnaround here with the right lottery pick. In a perfect world for them, that would be Flagg.
Current odds for No. 1 pick: 14%
The Jazz don’t have the sort of obvious young stars on Flagg’s timeline that the Hornets have. They don’t have Portland’s depth of role players either, and they certainly lack the win-now promise the top two teams on these rankings possess. What they have, more than any other team that’s realistically in play for Flagg, is malleability.
Only the Thunder rival the Jazz in terms of incoming draft picks. Utah has enough firepower to trade for virtually any sort of teammate Flagg might need. Perhaps more importantly, the Jazz have a lead basketball executive in Danny Ainge that has put together multiple champions. It might take a little while to get going, but Flagg’s career would be in good hands in Utah. Given the limited track record of most of the other front offices in this lottery, that can’t be assured in many other places. It would, in essence, reflect the situation Victor Wembanyama entered two years ago: a mostly blank slate with a smart front office. That’s worked out quite well for him thus far.
So what about the current core? In Lauri Markkanen, Walker Kessler and John Collins, the Jazz theoretically already have all three starting front-court slots filled. That isn’t a bad thing, though. The three of them are wildly different sorts of players. Markkanen is a shooter and on-ball creator. Collins is a roller and rim scorer. Kessler is a star rim-protector on defense. Having all of those pieces in place gives the Jazz room to experiment with what sort of teammates fit Flagg best. Collins — on an expiring deal next season assuming he picks up his player option — is the easiest to get off of if necessary. With Markkanen now on a long-term extension, he could be traded for significant value as well if need be.
His rookie season would be an experiment, and it would give the Jazz time to figure out the backcourt. Keyonte George has put up numbers in a no-pressure situation. Can he be more efficient and improve his decision-making on a team with actual ambition? Can Isaiah Collier‘s scoring rise to the level of his playmaking? These are questions to be answered with time, but Utah’s hilarious surplus of draft picks almost renders them pointless. Either they have the guards they’ll need or they can just go get them. Few other teams can say the same.
Current odds for No. 1 pick: 9.0%
Be honest: your instinct is to fixate on the scary contracts owed to Joel Embiid and Paul George right now, isn’t it? Pretend they don’t exist for a moment. Philadelphia still has Tyrese Maxey, the best guard plausibly available to Flagg as a teammate next season. He’s plenty capable of soaking up possessions early in Flagg’s career while slowly ceding usage depending on how far Flagg winds up going. He’s a stellar 3-point shooter, perfectly capable of operating off of the ball, and his experience with Embiid has taught him a number of tricks that would benefit Flagg. He knows how to modulate his pace to facilitate a bigger ball-handler and shooter, but he also knows how turn on the jets to bend a defense in favorable ways.
Now let’s reintroduce Embiid and George back into the equation. Even if their health isn’t dependable, the 76ers currently have max players at center and small forward. They have one at point guard as well, and they have not only stellar No. 16 overall pick (and former Duke Blue Devil) Jared McCain at shooting guard, but breakout deadline addition Quentin Grimes as well. If healthy, this team has everything except a power forward. There isn’t an easier lineup to slide Flagg into, and his presence could feasibly make it easier to keep Embiid and George healthy moving forward. It’s a lot easier to limit Embiid to 25 minutes a night if Flagg is on the floor for the minutes he rests.
Daryl Morey’s stock as a general manager is lower today than it’s ever been. But this is his 18th season as a lead basketball decision-maker, and it will be his first below .500. Flagg wouldn’t be stuck in an ugly rebuild here, as bad as this season has been. He’d be joining a team with at least one other foundational player, possibly a few more, and a general manager with a history of building winners.
Current odds for No. 1 pick: 4.5%
I mean… what who were you expecting? Wembanyama and Flagg together might be checkmate for every team besides Oklahoma City for the next decade. They’re about as perfect a fit together as you can ask out of two big men. Wembanyama is, obviously, a generational rim-protector. Flagg is going to wind up playing some center in the NBA, but he’s best-suited covering more ground on the perimeter as a forward. Well, he can go nuts knowing Wembanyama is behind him.
Stephon Castle is an incredibly athletic, high-IQ young guard. His potential is limited only by his poor shooting. You know how maximize a guard who can’t shoot 3s? By pairing him with big men that can. Flagg and Wembanyama would help get the most out of Castle. We haven’t even mentioned De’Aaron Fox, the All-Star point guard they just traded for last month. He’d be the adult hand on the wheel while the youngsters figure things out.
Speaking of which, Chris Paul is on the team this season. The Spurs would be incentivized to bring him back next season. Aside from the fact that he hasn’t missed a game this year, he also has a remarkable track record of developing young stars. His fingerprints are all over Shai Gilgeous-Alexander‘s ascension to superstardom. The same is true for Devin Booker. He’s even worked with an athletically gifted and ultra-versatile power forward in Blake Griffin. Any team that employs Flagg would want to send him to the Chris Paul finishing school for young stars. The Spurs actually have him.
The people who built their five champions may be getting long in the tooth, but they’re still in the building. These are the people you want to entrust with a talent like Flagg’s. Assuming Wembanyama comes back healthy next season, he and Flagg would be one of the most promising young front courts in NBA history. They’d start competing for rings before long. The Spurs are our no-brainer No. 1.
Why do the _____ miss out?
Obviously, we covered five of the teams currently projected to pick in the top 11. What about the others? Here’s a lightning-round explanation on why they missed out:
- The Wizards are still too raw. There’s promise there, and they’re actually starting to show signs of improvement on the court. But the guard play isn’t remotely ready to help shepherd along a prospect as promising as Flagg. Alex Sarr and Bilal Coulibaly are headed in the right direction, but their own futures are still so undetermined that adding another bigger wing of that ilk might force them into boxes they aren’t ready to be stuffed into yet. They’d figure it out if they got him, but Washington really needs someone closer to the traditional, No. 1 scoring archetype of a top pick.
- Too raw doesn’t even begin to describe the Nets. They haven’t even really started their rebuild yet. They don’t have a Sarr or Coulibaly, they just started moving veterans last summer. The roster is basically the carcass of what they had a year ago with a few nice finds from the front office sprinkled in. The team has won with help of great coaching, but there just aren’t building blocks here yet. Cam Thomas is a great scorer, but not someone you want dominating usage next to Flagg. He needs someone a bit more interested in sharing the ball. The New York market and all of those future draft picks from the Knicks would help him lure talent to Brooklyn, but right now, there just isn’t enough there for the early portion of Flagg’s career.
- Nobody quite knows what the Raptors are doing. A few years ago they were a wing-heavy group with no true stars. They tore that team down to build, once again, a wing-heavy group with no true stars. Flagg would add to the budding versatility here, but what the Raptors need, like the Wizards, is a ball-handling guard to direct the offense. A few years ago, Masai Ujiri might’ve gotten the credit that Ainge and Morey do above. His last few transaction cycles have been shaky, though, so until the Raptors prove they have a definable direction, they’re best not entrusted with a prospect like Flagg.
- The Pelicans already have a bunch of forwards. Herb Jones and Trey Murphy can fit with basically anyone. Zion Williamson is another matter. Could he and Flagg play together? Potentially. Flagg can defend wings and shoot, so he wouldn’t get in Williamson’s way, but he’d also miss out on a lot of the ball-handling reps he’ll need early on to grow into an All-Star. Dejounte Murray would be a suitable high-usage guard fit early on if he were healthy, but his torn Achilles might compromise things. Adding Flagg might push the Pelicans in more of a rebuilding direction, perhaps even culminating with a Williamson trade, but that’s too much uncertainty to consider here. This fit would be interesting, but clunky. The upside would be high. The floor, as we’ve seen with Williamson’s time here, would be low.
- I recently ranked the Bulls as the NBA’s worst front office. This is not an organization that should be entrusted with a talent like Flagg’s. He deserves better. They shouldn’t be bailed out of years of bad decision-making by one stroke of lottery luck. Having a star in Chicago would be great for the league, but only when the Bulls get their act together.
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