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

The Duke standout has been a dominant drive 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 totally and depart school behind or maintain his school choices open for a stay-or-go choice. Then once more, it may very well be made based mostly 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 wanting spectacular. He’s not solely main his staff in factors, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks but additionally serving to to hold the Blue Devils into the NCAA event. Even the Cameron Indoor Stadium crowd has begun to chant, “Another 12 months!” hoping that Flagg would return for his second season. Flagg himself acquired 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. Based on 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 Might 12…Workforce Flagg can ship out all kinds of smoke indicators. 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 fascinating. If Flagg decides to skip the draft for one more 12 months, it may find yourself costing him—large time. By staying in school, Flagg would delay signing a rookie max contract, which may very well 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% improve.

In the meantime, staying at Duke would possibly 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 hundreds of thousands, even earlier than he performs within the NBA.

Cooper Flagg’s jaw-dropping freshman 12 months attracts main comparisons

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that Flagg’s first 12 months 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 recreation — not numbers you often see from a first-year participant. He’s really on target to develop into the primary freshman since Ben Simmons to steer his staff in all 5 of the key classes.

Wanting on the full image, comparisons to Zion Williamson have been at all times unavoidable below 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 totally 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 high prospects for the NBA draft. However now there appears to be one large 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 ground is a lot larger than what Zion’s is. Yeah, I assume Zion’s ceiling is a bit bit larger, however I don’t know the way a lot larger. It’s not like loopy, loopy, ridiculously larger… In the event you made me guess proper now, I’ll have a better 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 Yr standings. At 2.910, his score is the very best in stats historical past, surpassing 2014-15 Frank Kaminsky’s 2.794. If he continues to provide this manner, Flagg may not simply be one other NBA prospect—he may be one of many subsequent superstars within the league.

A query arises. What will likely be Cooper Flagg’s choice? Will he threat hundreds of thousands and play the ready recreation and use the NBA’s draft lottery as a  leverage to regulate the place he performs? Or will he pursue the massive bucks and make the leap to the professionals? Whichever case it’s, Flagg’s name will likely be a game-changer. He has a protracted future forward of him and followers are ready to see what occurs subsequent.