Cooper Flagg Suggested to Ditch $400 Million in Case 2 Particular NBA Groups Win Lottery Choose

The Duke standout has been a dominant pressure in school basketball this season, main the Blue Devils in almost each statistical class. However with the NBA Draft approaching, Cooper Flagg has a call to make: to declare absolutely and depart school behind or hold his school choices open for a stay-or-go resolution. Then once more, it could possibly be made primarily based on the outcomes of the NBA’s draft lottery.

From the very begin of Cooper Flagg’s freshman season at Duke, he has been nothing in need of spectacular. He’s not solely main his crew in factors, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks but in addition serving to to hold the Blue Devils into the NCAA match. Even the Cameron Indoor Stadium crowd has begun to chant, “Yet another yr!” hoping that Flagg would return for his second season. Flagg himself received in on the motion, mouthing “Run it again,” including to hypothesis about his future at Duke or within the NBA.

Nevertheless, it’s not nearly his love for faculty basketball. In accordance with a report from Andy Staples at On3, if Flagg doesn’t like the place he lands within the draft, he has the choice to drag out and return to Duke. “Gamers have till June 15 to withdraw from the draft. The lottery is on Could 12…Workforce Flagg can ship out all kinds of smoke alerts. If the Wizards or Hornets win the lottery, they’d higher commerce the decide or the Maine Occasion is headed again to Durham,” wrote Staples.

Now, right here’s the place issues get attention-grabbing. If Flagg decides to skip the draft for one more yr, it may find yourself costing him—huge time. By staying in school, Flagg would delay signing a rookie max contract, which could possibly be value as much as $398.5 million over 5 years. That’s almost $80 million a season if we’re speaking in regards to the 2024-2025 wage cap and a ten% enhance.

In the meantime, staying at Duke may really feel tempting in some methods, it’s tough to miss the potential monetary implications. And but Flagg isn’t precisely ravenous. His meteoric success has made him the second-highest-paid school athlete within the nation for Title, Picture, and Likeness (NIL) contracts. With offers from main manufacturers, together with New Steadiness, Gatorade and Fanatics, he’s racking up tens of millions, even earlier than he performs within the NBA.

Cooper Flagg’s jaw-dropping freshman yr attracts main comparisons

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that Flagg’s first yr on campus has been a revelation. The younger guard is averaging 19.6 PTS, 7.5 REB, 4.2 AST, 1.6 STL and 1.2 BLK per sport — not numbers you often see from a first-year participant. He’s really on target to turn out to be the primary freshman since Ben Simmons to steer his crew in all 5 of the foremost classes.

Trying on the full image, comparisons to Zion Williamson have been at all times unavoidable beneath the circumstances. In spite of everything, Flagg has been honored as ACC Rookie of the Week 11 occasions and has garnered each the Rookie and Participant of the Week awards on 5 completely different events. That’s proper, similar to Zion in 2018-19.

Looking back, Zion’s historic 2018-19 season was among the many most dominant freshman seasons in school basketball historical past. And Flagg’s season has been the topic of many comparisons to that. As such, each have been considered prime prospects for the NBA draft. However now there appears to be one huge distinction. Guess what? A lot of analysts are of the opinion that Flagg might even be better. Sam Vecenie, an NCAA basketball analyst, agrees: “Cooper Flagg’s flooring is a lot larger than what Zion’s is. Yeah, I suppose Zion’s ceiling is just a little bit larger, however I don’t know the way a lot larger. It’s not like loopy, loopy, ridiculously larger… When you made me guess proper now, I’ll have the next grade on Cooper than I did on Zion.”

Flagg’s eye-popping stats and regular performances have already got him atop the KenPom Participant of the 12 months standings. At 2.910, his score is one of the best in stats historical past, surpassing 2014-15 Frank Kaminsky’s 2.794. If he continues to supply this fashion, Flagg may not simply be one other NBA prospect—he may be one of many subsequent superstars within the league.

A query arises. What might be Cooper Flagg’s resolution? Will he danger tens of millions and play the ready sport and use the NBA’s draft lottery as a  leverage to manage the place he performs? Or will he pursue the large bucks and make the leap to the professionals? Whichever case it’s, Flagg’s name might be a game-changer. He has an extended future forward of him and followers are ready to see what occurs subsequent.